“Don’t just do something, stand there (or be there)” is Reverend David Fleenor’s directive, reversing the admonition “don’t just stand there, do something”. Or maybe the place. For attention is crucial for this religious leader tasked with overseeing a group of aspiring chaplains, including a viscerally vulnerable protege named Mati Engel, as they undertake an emotionally draining residency in Mount Hospital’s Spiritual Care Department. Sinai of New York. But the mantra could also apply to award-winning filmmaker Luke Lorentzen (Sundance premiere in 2019 midnight family) who has the gift of testifying in silence through his cinema verity lens.
That said, the intimate collaboration that led to its first Sundance follow-up A small voice again – and also to Lorentzen receiving an “honorary certificate” at the end of filming the year-long program (not to mention the award for best direction in the American Documentary Competition in Park City) – is both extraordinary and somewhat unsettling. . On the one hand, for Lorentzen to immerse himself in a project in which he “absorbed other people’s pain and experienced exhaustion” and was “pushed as far as I would ever want to be pushed” for a film, such as he stated in the doc’s press notes, seems a truly remarkable act of devotion, as does his choice to include an interview with Mati in those same press notes, in which she refers to the camera as an “extension of the ‘chaplaincy’. This is a somewhat disturbing characterization. Because where does such a dedicated documentarian draw the line between a cinematic partnership and potentially allowing a character to choreograph the story?
While on its surface A small voice again follows selfless caregivers drawn to a higher cause, dig a little deeper and that stubborn white savior complex begins to bubble. What begins as a film about “being there” becomes a film about being seen – and not necessarily by the camera. The relationship between Mati and Reverend David reveals an uncomfortable power dynamic as Mati pushes the cleric to push his limits and the Reverend refuses to push the limits he has imposed on himself, instead repeating a mantra standard of personal care to a still grieving intern. the death of his father. It’s telling that some of the most memorable scenes in A small voice again involve the couple listening to their own (not small) voice over the other’s or their patients’ – for example, Mati trying to connect with a distraught woman by revealing a personal trauma; the reverend carries his soul online to his own therapist/mentor. It all ends with a final confrontation between the two, filmed by Lorentzen.
These dueling protagonists no longer work together at Mount Sinai, or directly with patients, for that matter. Reverend David currently runs the clinical pastoral education program he founded at Stony Brook University on Long Island (which I learned about while visiting his website) while Mati added a new role to his spiritual care resume: practicing performance artist. While A small voice again has a lofty conceit at the end, it veers too close to performance art itself.
A small voice again will be screened at the DC/Dox Festival on June 17.
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