Film: Forced Free | nd-aktuell.de

Dissatisfaction with the German healthcare system is increasing across the country and confidence in its performance is dwindling. The everyday experiences of many people revolve around a shortage of doctors, a lack of nursing staff, bottlenecks in the supply of medication, long waiting times for specialist appointments and a two-class system of medicine that differentiates between private and statutory health insurance patients. However, there is one sector that remains unaffected by all this and that is medical tourism from abroad.

Many hospitals maintain their own, isolated wards designed like hotels in order to meet the profit expectations of their shareholders thanks to their wealthy clientele. Medical tourism even grew by leaps and bounds after Corona; Around 180,000 people came to Germany in 2022 to receive treatment here. The cliché image of the rich emir who is flown in and gets a makeover for a lot of money is only partly true, as three quarters of the foreign patients come from neighboring countries.

Of course, the cliché is much more attractive than the gray reality. That’s why in “Days with Naadirah” director Josephine Frydetzki prefers to have such an extremely rich large family and their entourage flown in from Qatar, whose patriarch needs heart surgery. At Leipzig Airport at night, limousines are ready to take the wealthy guests to the luxury hotel, where they have reserved an entire floor for themselves.

One of the chauffeurs is around 30-year-old Daniel (Christoph Humnig). He used to have ambitions, but at some point he had enough of the supposed freedom of the West, which in his eyes only meant self-exploitation (this quarrel with the hyper-individualism of the West and its promises of happiness, by the way, seems to be a very East German topic, and Frydetzki is actually in Leipzig was born and completed her studies at the “Konrad Wolf” film university in Babelsberg). Now he has hidden away into private happiness with his wife and child and works for his father-in-law’s company, which specializes in operating a limousine service for Arab medical tourists and also arranges business with them.

This is definitely an original idea for a story that stands out from the usual cinematic monotony. What is particularly interesting is the enormous social difference between the two worlds that collide. When the boss warns his people: “And don’t look them in the eyes!”, this precisely describes who is the master and who is the slave. For the Qataris, Daniel and his colleagues are nothing other than the servants who are chased around with short, harsh commands to always be ready and obediently fulfill all the wishes of the master and his family.

In a country like Germany, where the idea of ​​a largely leveled middle class society still prevails (even if this no longer corresponds to reality) and wealth is not denied, but rarely ostentatiously displayed, such behavior takes some getting used to. The role of the servant is a completely unusual one for Germans who in the past – and sometimes still today – would like to let the world heal its nature.

The tensions arising from this clash of cultural and social realities would have been worthy of closer cinematic examination. Instead, the script ultimately focuses more on the amour fou between Daniel and Naadirah (Kenda Hmeidan), the patriarch’s favorite daughter. A husband has already been chosen for her and the wedding date has been set. It’s not fitting that the chauffeur and his guest in the back of the limousine gradually get closer to each other.

But what does Naadirah, whose life path is marked out as an obedient wife, want from Daniel? Is she really in love? Does she want to break out of her golden cage, which she is actually too smart for? Or have a quick adventure before she takes on her intended role? The film cleverly oscillates between these poles and reveals the constraints and the enormous pressure that comes with life as a daughter from a good (Arab) home.

As Daniel’s life plan is increasingly cast into doubt by the taunts and provocations of the self-confident Naadirah, Frydetzki raises questions about the understanding of freedom. Is Daniel the freer one because he supposedly chose everything freely, even though he struggles with the meaninglessness of the meritocracy? Naadirah’s life, on the other hand, is largely predetermined and determined by others, and it’s not about your own performance, but about who you come from.

So far, so bad, but she can do whatever she wants in her golden cage and doesn’t even have to worry about the money. Who is ultimately the freer? Of course the film has no answer to this, but the open-ended question alone is remarkable because it shows the helplessness of the younger generations as a result of the faded Western promise of freedom.

“Days with Naadirah”, Germany 2023. Director: Josephine Frydetzki. Book: Josephine Frydetzki, Gisela Wehrl. With Christoph Humnig, Kenda Hmeidan. 93 min. Start: 1.8.