Reaction Paper (Movie)

The Physician
The movie “The Physician” is a 2013 German Historical film directed by Philipp Stölzl.
It is based on a novel of by same name which is written by Noah Gordon. The film begins in
England during the Middle Ages. An English Christian named Robe Cole lost his sick mother
with an ailment of appendicitis, a disease he was unaware of. By then, he had discovered an
extraordinary gift of sensing impending death as the life force slipping from his mother’s hand
upon her death. After all, there aren’t any doctors and medicine is extremely primitive to heal
her. He is adopted by a traveling barber, offering people "remedies" for common ailments. The
guy is very gruff and his knowledge of medicine is negligible but young Rob Cole (Thomas
Payne) learns what he can from his new guardian. After meeting a group of Jews who helps the
barber regain his sight because of cataract, Rob becomes interested in the healing arts and sets
his goal to study under the "greatest healer in the world, Ibn Sina. Rob disguises himself as a
Jew, since Christians aren't allowed in the borders of the Muslim World, out from England all
the way to Isfahan to become a "hakim" or a professional healer under the teaching of Ibn Sina.
There he helps defeat the Black plague, and side sickness with Ibn Sina.
As I’ve watched the entire movie, I can’t help but notice a lot of historical and biblical
errors. This movie portrayed Muslims and Islam in a horrible and inaccurate way. First, Muslims
doesn't hate Christians but in fact they allow them to have churches and worship their God
without annoying or disturbing them. Second, Muslims never bend or kneel to anyone except
their God unlike what happened in the movie. Lastly, in Islam there is nothing against the
science and there is nothing called witchcraft, but in fact there are a lot of facts in the Holy
Quran that we can't prove it without the science so in this movie they are giving a wrong idea
about it.
But setting those inaccuracies aside, I find this movie interesting and enjoyable to watch.
There are some reasons that I like in the said film. One of these things is the personality of the
main character. He went to a very difficult journey in order to reach his goals on becoming a
healer: losing his family; traveling England and finding himself to emerge from being a young
roughneck who fought with every man and slept with every woman to wanting to become a real
healer; having a sixth sense about upcoming death; betraying his religious views; learning to deal
with all those new cultures. Tom Payne, the cast who played Rob, made a decent job on
portraying the role. It is about a man who having lost much in his early life follows his greatest
Love and lets life guide him home to his true vocation, to which he cannot imagine not doing. I
have also learned the different medieval and primitive medicines during the Middle Age period.
The scenes and the cinematography were visually stunning; I can see that the cinematographers
and the production set worked hard for it.
All things considered I hardly recommend this movie. It's picturesque and captivating.
The music is very beautiful as well. Even though there are some historical mistakes, people must
understand that it is a work of fiction using some real life events and characters as many movies
and books do. As such, its makers have full creative license to make their movie into anything
they want. It is a perfectly crafted piece of art and cast exceptionally well and with deep
sensitivity as to the parts each actor portrayed.
Mary Noelyn Degoma
DDM 1-C
GE 107
Febuary 3, 2020