brief overview: This is a positive film review of Dan Krauss' award winning Netflix film

extremis: Hard to stay alive 

February 19, 2020

​

Can you imagine anything more disturbing than watching a human being not being able to stay alive? Now would be the time to glide into the gates of Dan Krauss’ 2016 Oscar nominated documentary, ‘Extremis’, as he shows the sickness of patients in the hospital intensive care unit. 

​

 Beep, beep, beep. The documentary starts off with a doctor responding to a patient on a breathing tube who isn’t able to do much. As she tries to get the patient to communicate, she insists on having the patient write on a piece of paper, which they had a difficult time accomplishing. At Highland hospital, located in Oakland, California, Dan Krauss takes on patients Donna and Selena as they struggle to stay alive. While you have nurses and doctors doing what they can to help these patients, it will leave you with a question of “what happens next?” In this heartbreaking, end-of-life film, families surround their loved ones, lost of what makes happen next, worried about if they will lose a family member. With a strong arrest from the film that “everyone in this room will die one day”, it leaves the audience with deep thoughts of the true statement providing strong intensity in this film. You wouldn’t want to miss out on the heartfelt documentary.

 

 

Although there is a lack of depth in the documentary, the film hits strong points of the patients in the intensive care unit. This film serves 24 minutes of what could have been longer if there were more key points. With such a short runtime, the film has no room to cram so many details into it. These doctors are pretty much forced to make the whole documentary work in the snap of a finger. It shows the audience how difficult it is for patients, families, and even doctors to take in the fact that the patient is trying to stay alive. 

 

​

The first patient we encounter is Donna, who has been living for many years, with a condition called muscular dystrophy, which can result in her dying. This condition concludes in her not being able to breathe on her own. Doctors had to insert a breathing tube on her and put her on a ventilator. Now there’s a big question hanging over the heads of “what will we do moving forward?”

​

Next, we meet Selena. A patient who had cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital as her daughter, Tama was driving. She had to pull over and give her mother CPR for approximately 20 minutes before help arrived. When help came, Selena was rushed to the ER and placed on a ventilator. This results in her not being able to breathe on her own. Very heart wrecking for Tama, who had to experience this in the mist of almost losing her mother. Right along with Donna, nurse Zitter wants to know what will happen moving along.. As her family and doctors surround her, they all try to come together and find ways to cope with this devastating tragedy. You won’t look back on  this intense, sincere film. I feel that this was a very touching film and very informative; helpful to see how the intensive care unit works in the hospital.