{"id":2805,"date":"2021-02-17T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T08:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=2805"},"modified":"2021-02-03T22:29:34","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T21:29:34","slug":"unexpected-gifts-film-review-of-looted-by-rene-van-pannevis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2021\/02\/17\/unexpected-gifts-film-review-of-looted-by-rene-van-pannevis\/","title":{"rendered":"Unexpected Gifts: Film review of “Looted,” by Rene van Pannevis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looted<\/em>, directed by Rene van Pannevis, UK, 2019, available on virtual cinema and on-demand.<\/p>\n

by Professor Robert Abrams, Weill Cornell, New York.<\/p>\n

Alert: the review contains plot spoilers! \u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The central story of Looted<\/em> is a bitter father-son saga, a tragedy about parental failure and filial remorse.\u00a0 The film also includes explicit depictions of terminal illness, caregiving and the heightened emotional states that flare in dying patients and their family members, but in so doing it does not neglect the possibility of unusual resolutions and unexpected gifts.<\/p>\n

The father is Oswald [Tom Fisher], a middle-aged man who is dying slowly of mesothelioma, a condition he contracted from exposure to asbestos as a merchant marine.\u00a0 Gasping for air, he still speaks fondly of the beauty and romanticism of the sea, of the thrilling freedom that he could not bring himself to give up until illness forced him to do so.\u00a0 Aware of his grim prognosis, he refuses hospitalization but does accept the weekly palliative pleurocentesis that eases his breathing and, for the present, keeps him alive.<\/p>\n