Facing the Truth / At kende sandheden (2002) dir. Nils Malmros

The boy has suffered a stroke, leaving one entire side of his body paralyzed. Dr. Malmros (Jens Albinus) is one of the best men in the whole of neurosurgery, and his exceptionally steady hands make him a prime candidate to operate on children. Working quickly and efficiently, he injects the boy with a chemical called a contrast medium to help photograph the blood vessels in his brain, locates the injured blood vessel, and ties it off. Yet another life saved. Except that decades later, the same boy will die of liver cancer—caused, ironically enough, by the same radio-emitter chemical used to save his life. This is the dilemma that is set up in the first few minutes of Facing the Truth, a powerful and moving story taken from the real life of a doctor who garnered great fame in Denmark, but fell out of favor for intensely personal reasons. It is not exclusively about the medical controversy, although that forms a big part of the story’s arena, but is really about the weather of a man’s spirit, and how he deals with hardships that come in spite of him being a good man and a skilled doctor. The film was directed by Nils Malmros, the real-life son of the real-life Dr. Malmros, and there isn’t a moment in it that feels inauthentic or forced.