a magnificent portrait of a woman in a documentary witnessing the state of public hospitals in France

After painting the portrait of two young girls in Teenage girlsor Sasha, born a boy, living like a little girl since the age of 3 in Little girl or Bambi, legendary figure of Parisian cabarets in the 1960s, Sébastien Lifshitz signs a new very beautiful portrait of a woman, that of a nursing executive for 40 years at the North hospital in Marseille, a few months before his retirement. Mrs Hofmann hits theaters on April 10.

When the film begins, Sylvie Hofmann, a nurse in the oncology department of the North hospital in Marseille, faces Covid with her team. She runs after gowns, fights to keep her staff that we constantly try to “steal” from her for other services, drowns herself in administrative procedures when her patients need care and human presence. We must disinfect, and welcome death, which the film shows without avoiding anything.

In this period of crisis, we must also manage the pain of families in a context of severe health constraints. In the corridors, a son expresses his anger because he is told that he will not be able to bury his mother in the country according to the funeral rites of his religion. Sylvie has to manage that too.

Recently, she lost her hearing in one ear, a consequence of “overwork”, suggests a doctor who examines her. Sylvie doesn’t stop. Between work at the hospital and her personal life – an 85-year-old mother who is struggling with a new recurrence of cancer with which she has lived for more than 20 years, her daughter, her grandson – she has never not a minute to her. Covid is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It’s decided, she’s going to retire.

“You build a shell for yourself”

The film follows the daily life of Madame Hofmann in her professional life, in an oncology department which has its dramas every day, but also her good humor, largely carried by this executive with a strong character, a “second mother” who spares neither his time nor his energy to best support patients, their families, and support his team.

In this service which encounters death on a daily basis, we also know how to sit down to exchange, to support each other, by eating “stinky cheese”talking about love, life, or miming a cocktail dance while preparing remedies for the sick, a way of warding off death, or at least of supporting it.

The camera also surprises the team to smile, but not that much, at this story of a fly announcing a future death. In the meantime, because Sylvie’s service is also a palliative care service, we massage, we reassure, we cajole, as much as possible with the few resources made available.

“I believe that my brain, for 40 years, has never been at rest”

Sylvie Hoffmann

in “Madame Hoffman”

In the eyes of her team and the doctors, Mrs. Hofmann appears like a rock, still standing in the storm. But in the presence of the camera, the nurse drops the mask and gradually reveals her flaws, through exchanges with her mother or in peaceful moments with her husband, with whom she can let go, or even in confidences addressed to the camera: behind the facade,“inwardly, you are destroying yourself, inside, you are in self-destruction”, she confides. “So, you build yourself a shell. I lasted 40 years, so it had better be hard, this shell.”

“Shit job”

Through his experience, this film also shows us a sick system. A system that is still standing thanks to the commitment and tenacity of healthcare workers. Lack of staff, lack of beds, lack of equipment. It is through conversations or random scenes in the film that the reality of a hospital running out of steam is revealed. “This is very bad news”declares the head doctor when Sylvie tells him that she is going to retire, before suggesting without laughing that she “postpone your departure”. A few weeks later, Sylvie will celebrate the event with youthful joy mixed with the sadness of leaving this “shit job” that she loved so much, deep down.

“I tell myself that I have lived billions of lives in one lifetime”

Sylvie Hoffmann

in “Madame Hoffman”

In addition to her professional career, the film retraces a life, personal and intimate, from which work is never completely absent, but also inscribed in the journey of a family, of a line of women. Sylvie goes back in time by opening the family album with her mother, looking at and commenting on the photographs of her childhood, her youth, and those of her mother, an immigrant from Italy, who speaks flowery, ornamented Marseille images and expressions that seem straight out of Pagnol’s films.

As usual, Sébastien Lifshitz films this daily life with images of great beauty. He inserts silent sequences into the madness of everyday life (illustrated with music that is sometimes a little too present), suspended moments in this incessant race, moments of pause in this headlong rush that is life, which has gone by so quickly, notes Sylvie. Because this beautiful film also tells us about the passing of time, and what makes a life valuable. That of Madame Hofmann is exemplary.

The sheet

Gender : Documentary
Director: Sébastien Lifshitz
Country : France
Duration : 1h44 min
Exit : April 10, 2024
Distributer : Ad Vitam