What happens when idealism hits the reality of the field.


The hardened, heroic doctor working selflessly to save lives in a war zone has become a familiar figure in popular entertainment.

A similar sense of drama permeates “Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders,” a documentary film about the international humanitarian aid group. But “Living in Emergency” stands apart by focusing on the organization and its mission rather than on individual predicaments.

Doctors Without Borders was founded in France in 1971 by a group of young physicians and journalists, some of them with ties to the revolutionary movement of May 1968, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. Today the group, also known by its French abbreviation, M.S.F. (Medicins Sans Frontieres), has more than 27,000 workers providing medical assistance in more than 60 countries.

Mark N. Hopkins, 36, the film’s director, was not the first filmmaker who wanted to document the group’s work in disaster and war zones.

“We are not necessarily interested in doing a story about the heroes of M.S.F. or the type of personality that goes to the field,” Kris Torgeson, secretary general of M.S.F. International, said . “We are interested in the types of proposals that try to have an innovative way of looking at what we do and portray the reality of the field, so when Mark and his crew first approached us, we had a lot of questions about those things.”

What emerged is a warts-and-all portrait of the organization and those who volunteer for service. At just over 90 minutes (and at a cost of $1.5 million), “Living in Emergency” follows four doctors who are on six-month missions to war-torn areas of Africa. Two are in the field for the first time, in Liberia: Tom Krueger is an experienced surgeon from Tennessee , while Davinder Gill is an idealistic young Australian of Indian descent just out of medical school. The head of mission to whom both men report is Chiara Lepora, a toxicologist from Italy . Rounding out the group is an Australian anesthesiologist, Chris Brasher, a nine-year veteran .

Dr. Lepora, who first saw “Living in Emergency” at the Venice Film Festival, said she approved of the choices Mr. Hopkins made. “People have a tendency to oversimplify humanitarian work and the complexity it involves,” Dr. Lepora said. They tend to idealize both the providers and the patients, she added, “to see them as something far away when they are not that, but humans who also get drunk and angry.”


By LARRY ROHTER