'Mankind’s Land' features doctors as "beloved"

Iranian film critic and journalist Seyyed Reza Saemi has reviewed ifilm series 'Mankind’s Land' directed by Abolhassan Davoudi.

‘Mankind’s Land’ has two dramatic characteristics; one is the hospital as the main location where the story is set with adventures and the working relationships occurring there. Secondly, the main characters of the story are physicians and who are under training for specialization.

Their specialized medical field is neurology that goes well with storyline of the series. In fact, the medical theme here is used to incorporate human emotions for the narration of various stories.
The hospital in the series is characterized as fixed place where stories unfold with the arrival of new patients. One of the points in the series that grabs the audiences in the first place is the depiction of the hospital's location and medical practices.

Additionally, in this series the director seems to have depicted various situations closely related to the medical profession and hospital process with more caution. Even the debut episode of the series uses images captured from a real surgery room to narrate the story.

The use of these narrative deceives has helped suggest a documentary sense that strengthens the realistic aspect of the narrative. Besides boosting the dramatic and visual advantages of the series, this approach has made ‘Mankind’s Land’ an educational production to be used in the medical sciences. Meanwhile, the director seems to have been influenced by the famous ‘Nurses’ series and its narrative as well as characterization.

In ‘Mankind’s Land’, it has been tried to depict a different image of physicians and the medical profession with a human touch. The emotional exchange between the doctor and the patient in this story is far more evident than in similar works having the same theme. In fact, the audiences do not come across a typical image of a doctor; on the contrary, the doctor presented here is a sage who has attained the wisdom or a beloved with respect to mysticism.

 In Iran’s history, physicians simply did not pay attention to the patient's physical well-being as they were also interested in soul and affection. For this reason, the physicians were among the well-trusted people who dealt with emotional and psychological problems.

The physicians' specialization in the field of neurology has given them deeper and more logical meanings. For example, see how Ali Nasiriyan as a physician in the series tries to help increase the morale in his patient after a heart surgery.

On the other hand, the doctor whose role is played by Sadreddin Shajareh is a serious one showing less care for feelings. He seems to be dealing with his patients on a formal basis with no human feelings attached. The director has the various personalities of physicians in place to narrate different ways of behavior and medical ethics in the context of individual and personality differences.

In other words, in the series, the human face of the physician, prior to the professional aspects, has been replaced. Although the patients who enter this hospital bring along a series of stories, each has their own background and memories that are reviewed due to realization of dramatic suspense. Meanwhile, the social and psychological identities of people are featured alongside physical identities in order to bring a sense of human connection to the series.

The series drama is also balanced between the doctors and the patients with significance in proportion to standing in the drama rather than their social status. Such outlook has toned down one-sided directing interpretation with respect to the story’s characters, making the story more consistent. Yet, the performances of Nasiriyan and Shajareh as the main characters should not be ignored as their acting skills have made it a success.

‘Mankind’s Land’ series, beyond the drama, has two important features in the storyline; one being attentive to medical details, presenting them in various scenes of the series. In this case, only a few Iranian series have followed this trend. Additionally, the series highlights doctor-patient interaction depicted within the boundaries of human touch.

The excitement resulting from such situation improves the velocity of storyline in the series.

AG/AG