Winner of Best Documentary Feature at the 2013 Los Angeles Film Festival and the Golden Starfish Award at the 2013 Hamptons International Film Festival, Ryan McGarry's Code Black sounds a lot like the type of documentary you'd find yourself watching on some late night cable television channel but, in fact, it's a more involved and compelling documentary feature about L.A. County Hospital's transformation from the chaotic yet inspired C-Booth to a far more organized and streamlined emergency care setting in a new building that in many ways lacks the heart and soul of the rather infamous C-Booth.

McGarry, a doctor himself in the setting and not an experienced filmmaker, creates an authentic creating film precisely because he avoids the usual filmmaker flourishes that may make a film more stylish but they can always take away, rather ironically, the soul of a film.

As an adult living with spina bifida, I've certainly seen my share of emergency rooms and McGarry does a terrific job of capturing both the chaos and the compassion that can so easily co-exist. Coincidentally, I also spent nearly 10 years working in an emergency room setting and resonated quite a bit with working in an under-equipped, overworked setting with people who are in the business because, for a variety of reasons, they genuinely care. While I've certainly spent a good number of my adult years jaded at the costs of healthcare and the decreased compassion, the struggles contained within Code Black are familiar and a reminder of the many things I appreciated about being a child, youth and young adult who basically grew up in a hospital setting.

Essentially, Code Black is an effective and involving documentary feature about those involved in medicine who do care and who do strive to create a balance with the new flood of policy and bureaucracy that makes it difficult manage the daily healthcare process and the genuine desire that many of them have to truly make a difference in the lives of others and to connect with their patients.

© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic