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The Physician (2013 film)

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The Physician (German: Der Medicus) is a 2013 German historical drama film about an orphan in eleventh century England who makes the arduous journey to have an adventure in studying medicine with one of the greatest scholars at that time in Persia.

Directed by Philipp Stölzl. Written by Philipp Stölzl, Simon Block, and Christoph Müller, based on the novel of the same name by Noah Gordon.
A journey out of darkness into light

Intertitle

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  • In Europe's Middle Ages, healing arts developed during Roman times are almost forgotten. No doctors or hospitals... only traveling barbers with little knowledge. At the same time, on the other end of the world, medical science flourishes.

Rob Cole

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  • I don't want to treat warts all my life. I don't want to pull teeth and sell horse piss as a miracle tonic. I want to learn how to cure cataracts, side sickness and all other diseases.
  • May the Lord have mercy upon me. Bless me in my long and dangerous journey. Let not the waves engulf me, nor sea monsters devour me. Let not bandits slit my throat, or wolves eat me alive. Let me not starve or get lost in the dark woods or cold mountains. And please let Jesus forgive me, that I shall deny my faith and soil myself with sin, to serve your creation and glory.

Ibn Sina

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  • Because there is nothing to be afraid of. Death is merely a threshold we must all cross... into the silence, after the final heartbeat... drifting away with our final exhalation... into eternal peace...

Karim

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  • My father believed feelings and emotions were beneath a true ruler. When I was a child, to drive them from my heart, he would take me to witness executions. I watched condemned men beg for their lives. I watched the swarms of flies feasting on twitching corpses. But then, over time, I became used to the sight, the smell, and the screams. In time I felt nothing. My father had succeeded in turning death into a subject of objective study. And now I am the Shah, ruler of all we see. The king of feeling nothing.

Dialogue

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Have you ever wondered what's inside?
[Rob Cole wanders over to a roadside crucifix. Rob puts his fingers into the "gash" in the side of the image of the crucifix, and then when he is shirtless he points to his own chest.]
Rob Cole: Have you ever wondered what's inside? In here.
Barber: Flesh, blood, bones. Your soul, if you have one.
Rob Cole: And down here? [pointing to the right side of his abdomen]
Barber: More flesh, more blood.
Rob Cole: So does side-sickness [appendicitis] come from bad blood?
Barber: I don't care if if comes from my ass. Can't cure it, can't charge for it.
Robe Cole: Have you never wondered what's inside? You've never looked?
Barber: I can slice you up after breakfast.
Rob Cole: No, I mean like in dead people.
Barber: Don't you ever talk about that again. Never! Do you know what the Church does to necromancers? Burn them at the stake.
The greatest physician the world has ever seen teaches there.
Robe Cole: What you've done to my master's eyes? [referring to performing an eye surgery for cataracts] Where did you learn it?
Jewish doctor: In a place called Ispahan.
Rob Cole: Ispahan. Is that beyond London?
Jewish doctor: Is that beyond London? Is he serious? There [in pointing to a map of the known world]
Rob Cole: What is it? [referring to the parchment with a map]
Jewish doctor: The World.
Rob Cole: The World?
Jewish doctor: Look. We are here. This is London. And here - here is Ispahan. The greatest physician the world has ever seen teaches there. Ibn Sina. There is no one on earth that can match him for knowledge and wisdom.
Rob Cole: Ibn...
Jewish doctor: Ibn Sina.
Robe Cole: Ibn Sina. Can he... cure the side-sickness?
Jewish doctor: Ibn Sina can cure many illnesses.
Rob Cole: How long would it take me to get there
Jewish doctor: Over a year. First you have to go the south coast of England, then you cross the Channel... then you walk through France and take a sailboat along the coast of Africa. Then you arrive in Egypt... and here... you will be killed.
Rob Cole: Why?
Jewish doctor: From this point, the Muslim world begins. Arabia, Persia. But Christians have been banished from everywhere, only we Jews are tolerated. My condolences. You worship the wrong God.
Ibn Sina: [as he treats Rob after he was beaten] You seem... more interested in medicine than my other patients.
Rob Cole: I've come to be a student of Ibn Sina.
Ibn Sina: Have you now?
Rob Cole: I've been told he's the greatest healer in all the world.
Ibn Sina: No he's not that great. Quite ordinary, really.
Rob Cole: Do you know him?
Ibn Sina: A little better each day.
Rob Cole: Could you speak to him for me? [in order to get accepted into Ibn Sina's medical school]
Ibn Sina: You rest now.
Rob Cole: The plague doesn't care if you're rich or poor, common man or nobleman or head of state. But it's reached Ispahan. No wall, however thick, will stop it.
Shah Ala ad Daula: Are you threatening me, Englishman?
Rob Cole: Not a threat, my lord. A promise.
Rob Cole: You have all these virgins waiting for you. How many was it again?
Karim: Some say 99, some say 20. What about yours?
Rob Cole: None.
Karim: None? Then what's the point in dying?
Rob Cole: When the plague came, you were as helpless as a beach is to the advance of the sea. The tide washed over us and dragged our people away, and we could do nothing to stop it.
Ibn Sina: You ask of medicine what only Allah can perform. Or Yahweh.
Rob Cole: Do you never doubt your calling?
Ibn Sina: Every morning and every evening. In between I work too hard to think about it.
Ibn Sina: This is the burden every physician must learn to bear. You can't look upon death as the enemy.
Rob Cole: Than what? A friend?
Ibn Sina: I've calculated the orbits... of all these stars and planets. Filled volumes... with calculations. I have barely scratched the real secrets of creation.
Rob Cole: Isn't it frustrating there's so much you don't know?
Ibn Sina: No. Fills me with awe. How pale and tedious would this world be without mystery.
Rob Cole: Master. Could you have cured my mother's side-sickness?
Ibn Sina: That's beyond our reach. Maybe in a hundred years. Maybe in a thousand.
Quasim: Would you do me a favor? When I am gone, take my corpse to the tower and leave it for the birds.
Rob Cole: You don't want to be buried or cremated?
Quasim: We Zoroastrians leave our bodies to the vultures. They cleanse our souls of earthly remains.
Rob Cole: What about resurrection?
Quasim: Muslims, Jews, Christians, doubt the immortality of the soul. They want to take their bones with them, just in case.
Rob Cole: So you care nothing for your body?
Quasim: Why should God worry about the house, when he can have the fruit inside?
Master... nothing is as it is in the books.
Ibn Sina: [in prison, as they await their execution for Rob's performing human dissection on a corpse] What is it like? Inside?
Rob Cole: It's both...beautiful...and frightening.
Ibn Sina: Go on.
Rob Cole: I saw the heart.
Ibn Sina: Describe it.
Rob Cole: It has two chambers with an impassable wall in between.
Ibn Sina: So how does the blood get from one side to the other?
Rob Cole: By way of the lungs I think.
Ibn Sina: So all our theories about human circulation would be... wrong?!
Rob Cole: Master... nothing is as it is in the books. Nothing!
Ibn Sina: Continue. Don't skip a single detail.

Cast

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See also

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Wikipedia
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