UN MÉDECIN DE NUIT - Film's picture © PARTIZAN FILMS / DIAPHANA DISTRIBUTION
Elie Wajeman’s Médecin de Nuit (The Night Doctor) immerses us into the dark world of drug trafficking.
French director Elie Wajeman’s third feature film is the first to be included in the Cannes Selection. Over the course of one night, the viewer is taken through the city on a road movie-like journey as dark as it is intense. Vincent Macaigne plays this Night Doctor, a patron saint of drug addicts and lonely souls, who, by overstepping the boundaries of devotion to his patients, reveals to us the less glamorous reality of the medical world while also unveiling a hidden side to Paris. Distributed by Diaphana Distribution, Médecin de Nuit (The Night Doctor) will be released in French cinemas on June 16.
Mikaël is a night doctor who treats patients from inner-city neighbourhoods, as well as those nobody else wants to see: drug addicts. His life is a chaotic mess. He is torn between his wife and his mistress, while also being caught up in an attempt to traffic fake prescription drugs with his pharmacist cousin. Mikaël has no other choice: tonight, he has to take his life back into his own hands.
The screenplay of Médecin de Nuit (The Night Doctor) is based on two trials that the director attended, involving several doctors accused of collaborating in trafficking Subutex medication. These real-life events are brilliantly transformed by Elie Wajeman into a social and existentialist crime film. Aware of the risks he is taking but also torn between conflicting morals, Mikaël operates within a grey area between legal and illegal, as part of an on-going dramatic tension that unfolds over a single night.
In order to fully prepare Vincent Macaigne for the role and teach him the correct language, gestures and behaviour to use with patients, Elie Wajeman immersed him into these surroundings with the help of one of his friends:
“After following my doctor friend for months, I realised that many of the calls he received were related to panic attacks. He has to treat people’s injuries and illnesses, but also their anxieties… I have to say I’ve discovered how lonely Parisians really are.” Elie Wajeman
“Entering into people’s homes to see what is hidden behind their doors and windows, even when the curtains are drawn,” for Elie Wajeman, following this doctor on his call-outs and opening the doors of the capital’s tower blocks during his consultations, was also an opportunity to reveal a late-night portrait of an unknown and intimate Parisian reality. A tough challenge that is taken on with great application by Vincent Macaigne, Pio Marmaï and Sarah Giraudeau, alongside particularly noteworthy performances by the film’s secondary characters.
