The Doctors

Nerac is a brilliant young French doctor who finds the high-pressure ratrace of his residency in a large Paris hospital ideal. His brilliant technique, icy professional objectivity, and need for females only to satisfy impeding primal urges mark him as a man determined to rise to the top.

Adapted from Andre Soubiran's, Les Hommes en Blanc, The Doctors begins as an absorbing look into the characters of men whom the public usually sees only as more or less well-trained machines. The electric atmosphere in an operating room during a delicate heart operation contrasts violently with the staff party, where the same, methodical men and women release their tensions with orgiastic enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, this glimpse of the profession as a whole narrows down to close shots of Nerac, who by Fin has decided his destiny lies in the direction of a country doctor, bringing succor to illiterate, mistrusting peasants. Young Doctor Malonism never does quite creep into the film, though, because the eulogy at the old country doctor's funeral is short, and simple, and the only small flag waved for the medical profession in the whole story.

Scenes of the doctor visiting peasants living in squalor and ignorance make their points quietly, letting a frown at the stranger's syringe of tetanus serum, or scorn of his flimsy prescription note show the challenges Nerac finally dedicates himself to meeting.

Restrained, appealing, occasionally incisively told, the doctor's story is still a little more than interesting because the man unreasonably changes face completely in two week's time, in a stereotyped way easily predicted.

Raymond Pelegrin looks like a doctor; his smooth, professional air as the Nerac of the film's opening scenes, and his quiet dismay as he later realizes he is not a god, give a sensitive presentation of a part limited by overuse. Fernand Ledoux, as the old Dr. Delpuech, plays with age and experience in all his movements, and dies effectively, in itself something of an accomplishment.

The Doctors is a better French film than the Brattle has served in a long time. It is a small step in the right direction.