Arrhythmia

Oleg is an ambulance doctor. He is good at it: he decides fast, breaks protocol when he has to, and saves his patient. Outside work he is a mess: he drinks too much and his wife Katya has had enough. She says she wants a divorce and they go on living in the same flat because there is nowhere to go. In the same period a new manager arrives at the ambulance service and changes how it runs: twenty minutes per call, the paperwork complete, and the patient's condition second. Boris Khlebnikov directs. Aleksandr Yatsenko plays Oleg. The narrative runs two strands together: the marriage and the job. Both break for the same reason; Oleg goes on doing what he is good at and the order around him will not allow it. The ambulance sections are realistic and detailed; the interventions, the equipment and the reactions of relatives are given with documentary care. The subject is the transformation of the health system; the time and performance measures applied in Russian emergency services are directly the film's matter. Aleksandr Yatsenko's performance is measured; the character is not built as a hero and the drinking is nowhere romanticised. Its limit is structure; the shifts between the two strands repeat and the film ends without arriving anywhere. Who it is for: viewers who like contemporary Russian cinema and drama built on work and marriage. Who it is not for: the pace is low, the characters are exhausting, and the ending is left open.