A W-o-W film evening contrasted vocational guidance films with "Each and Every Moment", a heartfelt documentary by Nicolas Philibert on training of nurses at the La Croix Saint-Simon hospital in the suburbs of Paris.

In the second part of the W‑o-W film evening on the nursing profession, documentary filmmaker Nicolas Philibert (Etre et avoir/To be and to have, FR, 2002) takes a radically subjective look at the training of nurses in a teaching hospital in Montreuil, in the greater Paris area. “Each and Every Moment” (De chaque instant, FR 2018) can be read as a counter-position to the fact-based, mostly sober vocational guidance films of the first part of our film evening. Zwischen Wirklichkeit und Werbung. Berufsinfofilme zur Krankenpflege im Wandel der Zeit

In a training room, white-clad young people frantically press on an artificial torso to practice CPR chest compressions. The camera calmly watches as a student nurse describes his fear of administering the first stab to his colleague as she nervously sticks the hypodermic needle into a dummy during a “dry run.”

Nicolas Philibert takes viewers right into the exciting first days of a class of student nurses. We can feel the excitement in the chattering and euphoria of the ethnically diverse group as a young man, holding another training torso of a woman in labor as a demonstration model between his legs, learning about the reality of childbirth while being guided by the instructor who imitates the contractions at speed. From amusing and frenetic scenes of this kind, Philibert cuts to the drab lecturing of a teacher who virtually hammers the code of ethics for nurses into the students.

Images, language and sounds has an immediate effect on the viewer. The director refrains from any commentary, he does not classify, he does not evaluate, he does not explain anything. He leaves us, in the best sense, alone with the trainees and that, I have the feeling, it makes us empathize with them more profoundly. We laugh at the clumsy attempts at drawing blood and when the students make mistakes on their first hospital practice patients, it worries us too.

With the practice semester, we arrive at the second part of the film. The often harsh daily routine of the hospital puts pressure on the newcomers. We notice that some can handle it reasonably well, others are close to despair. The empathetic young man who chain-smokes cigarettes while listening to the pseudo-informative stories of the psychiatric patients on the large terrace of the clinic will probably have found his vocation.

Yet, when we follow the feedback conversations that make up the third part of the film, one doubts whether certain students are on the right track at all. Training supervisors or mentors empathetically but sternly analyze the progress of the training, the deficits of the candidates and discuss their suitability within the field of nursing after the exam. When one student fights for her future, it gets under our skin, also because Nicolas Philibert’s framing is so close. And that’s exactly what makes “Each and Every Moment” so special for me: a film in which you get close to people.

In Nicolas Philibert’s film, there is no nursing crisis, no question of financing the health care system, no political criticism, not even the difficulties in recruiting nursing staff. We only meet people, students and teachers alike, with their different temperaments and talents, and thus gain a deep insight into the practice of training nurses. In contrast to vocational guidance films, which are committed clear goals and purpose, documentary films, are allowed to do so: taking a stand.