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I remember when I was a young boy watching the news and seeing things that were frightening. My mother would tell me to look for the helpers. ‘There will always be people who are willing to assist.'” —Fred Rogers & Co.
With a deep understanding of the very helpers that Rogers spoke of so eloquently, British documentary filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel has created a film about them. His Oscar-winning short film, “The White Helmets,” from 2016, was an utterly galvanizing account of the first responders who saved the lives of Syrian civilians who were buried under the debris left by airstrikes in the country. As powerfully moving as any single image captured on film, whether it is nonfiction or fiction, is a sequence in which an infant is safely pulled from what appears to be a concrete birth canal until its cries elicit cheers of delight.
The documentary “Convergence: Courage in a Crisis,” produced by von Einsiedel and available on Netflix, contains numerous scenes that achieve a similar impact, particularly those involving migrant workers who have risked contracting the virus in order to heal others, all while being treated as second-class citizens. One of the film’s most intriguing aspects is how its greatest strength also serves as its greatest weakness on occasion. Von Einsiedel assembled a team of ten co-directors from around the world to provide their own perspectives on those who have kept society afloat during the pandemic. No matter what language is being spoken in a given situation—from Arabic and Farsi to Mandarin and Portuguese—the overarching message being conveyed is one of solidarity and brotherhood.
When it has finished setting up all of the various story threads during the first half-hour, the film proceeds to seamlessly transition between them in order to emphasize their universality. As editors Karen Sim and Raphael Pereira demonstrate, the murder of George Floyd reverberated around the world, illuminating how the struggle for equality transcends national boundaries and how COVID-19 affirmed this truth in the most stark of terms by having a disparate impact on underserved communities, this juxtaposition is particularly powerful. The footage itself is invaluable, but I found myself becoming occasionally frustrated when the film would interrupt a specific story thread that I wanted to continue following.
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At its worst, the film threatens to devolve into a feature-length public service announcement for front-line workers, complete with familiar soundbites, fragmenting vital material that deserves to be expanded into a miniseries, as it has in the past. As a result of this, there are enough individual vignettes in “Convergence” that are given the opportunity to breathe and thus resonate on a deeper level, allowing it to transcend even its cheesy virtual sing-alongs. Von Einsiedel and his team have created a stirring tribute to the truly incalculable sacrifice made by countless caregivers as the number of people killed by the virus surpasses 700,000 in the United States and roughly half of the population remains stubbornly unvaccinated.
In Geneva, Switzerland, World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declares that “there is no vaccine for misguided nationalism.” He is railing against the caustic divisions exacerbated by world leaders like Donald Trump, which the virus directly feeds on, and we see him railing against them. Professor Sarah Gilbert, a Vaccinologist at the University of Oxford who collaborated with AstraZeneca on the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, which was approved for use in the United Kingdom last December, also makes a brief appearance in the film. While watching the videos shot by fellow vlogger Wenhau Lin, who chronicles his efforts to drive medical care providers and transport medicine, I was reminded of Nanfu Wang’s excellent HBO documentary, “In the Same Breath,” and the footage it contains of Chen Qiushi—the Chinese activist who went missing in February after reporting on Wuhan’s coronavirus outbreak—which I had previously seen on Netflix. Following their departure, he engages in lighthearted and compassionate small talk with his passengers before diligently disinfecting the car seats.
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Despite the fact that Iranian couple Sara Khaki and Mohammad Reza Eyni’s portrait of their everyday life together in quarantine is unquestionably wrenching at times, it doesn’t add much to the overall picture, save for one brutal and all-too-relatable moment in which Sara sobs into a phone while grieving the loss of a loved one, the film is a disappointment overall. The most powerful montage in the film, set to the song “Only You,” surveys the types of crucial communal events that have been taken for granted for so long, such as weddings and funerals, but which families have been forced to experience solely through their computer screens in recent years.
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That many of the best scenes in von Einsiedel’s film were shot by and center on a Syrian refugee in the United Kingdom, Hassan Akkad, who eagerly seeks work cleaning the COVID-19 ward at his local hospital, despite the trauma he’s previously experienced at such institutions, is perhaps appropriate. He uses the internet to effect real change, praising his international colleagues in viral Twitter posts and, when the National Health Service fails to include migrants in its bereavement scheme, he films an impassioned statement to the Prime Minister, which results in the policy being revised to include everyone. We follow events organizer Renata Alves as she provides her neighborhood with the first-ever reliable ambulance service, which was shot by director Mauricio Monteiro Filho in So Paulo’s Paraisópolis favela. It is during this sequence that the film’s most tense scenes are captured.
Alves revolts against a fascist government, believing that it wants those living in poverty, whom it has labeled as “cheap labor,” to perish. She hopes to erase the stigma that has been attached to her as a result of her prison sentence. This point of view is echoed by Dr. Armen Henderson, a physician at the University of Miami Health System who is working to assist the city’s predominantly Black homeless population, which is living in encampments that the government repeatedly destroys. Dr. Henderson is a physician who is working to assist the city’s predominantly Black homeless population, which lives in encampments that the government repeatedly destroys. Henderson’s scenes, which were beautifully photographed by Amber Fares, also depict how he was racially profiled by a white, maskless cop outside his own home, which is particularly chilling.
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Rather than anything else, “Convergence” brought home to me just how deeply grateful I am to every essential worker who has taken my temperature, bagged my groceries, and driven me to my desired destination over the past twenty months. Neither the kind-hearted Cook County nurse who administered both doses of my Pfizer vaccine nor the sister of a colleague who died after caring for the pet of a client who had been infected with COVID-19 at her veterinary clinic will be forgotten by me in my lifetime. Due to the client’s refusal to wear a face mask, the cancer-stricken veterinarian was forced to quarantine him for 25 days without receiving chemotherapy. No monument, no matter how majestic, could possibly capture the heroism of those who came to her aid.
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A similar statement could be made about the doctors who make certain that the birth of an Indian couple’s child is not jeopardized by the pandemic (these scenes, directed by Juhi Sharma, offer a tangible glimmer of hope). The most moving scene in the film takes place in Lima, Peru, where Dr. Rosa Luz López provides compassionate care for a young patient named Aldair while injecting a refreshing dose of levity into the situation (she refers to her hazmat suit as a “Tellatubby costume”). Upon Aldair’s recovery, co-directors Lali Houghton and Guillermo Galdos accompany López back to her office, where she is finally able to shed tears of gratitude for the work she has done. Despite her insistence that she does not want recognition, she does want a better health-care system. López embodies the principle of treating others as you would like to be treated in such a radiant way that it serves as a beacon of hope for all of us.
Netflix is currently streaming the film.
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