76 Days

The 2020 documentary by Hao Wu, Weixi Chen and an unnamed third director tells the seventy-six days of Wuhan's lockdown from inside four hospitals. There is no voice-over, no expert commentary, no political argument about the pandemic; only corridors, intensive care and families waiting at the door. Its strongest moments are in small details: names written on protective suits, the phones of the dead handed back to their families, a newborn brought to its mother. The method takes the event out of the realm of statistics. Its limit sits in the same place: the question of how the system reached this point is never opened, a consequence of the conditions of filming. Who it's for: viewers interested in observational documentary and first-hand records of the pandemic. Who it's not for: anyone wanting political analysis, or avoiding images of death and hospitals.