Edmonton – If you are anything like me, then you are suspicious of people who claim to be passionate about their work. If you don’t know anyone that is lucky enough to have stumbled on that kind of career-love, well, meet neurosurgeon Henry Marsh. Since 1992, Marsh has been traveling from his native England to the Ukraine to spend time with his colleague, Igor Kurilets. It’s 93 minutes of job shadowing as you watch these two men on their daily emotional roller coaster. What impressed me about this film is how the stories meld together – the enduring and endearing friendship between the two surgeons, the tale of Marian a young Ukrainian man with a brain tumour who puts his faith in God and these two god-like men, the daily struggle for Igor in his clinic where, sadly, cost is front and centre, and the stresses of being a neurosurgeon which Marsh likens to “playing Russian roulette with two revolvers.”
One word of note, this movie does show a surgery which inspires a lot of “Holy crap!” and similar. If you are a bit queasy about that sort of thing then watch with a friend who can tell you when that part is over.
