There’s a twilight zone that the Ochoa family, the subjects of this superb observational documentary, inhabit. It’s a very dirty grey area situated somewhere between moral and amoral, occasionally dipping into outright immoral. The Ochoa men (and only once do we get a glimpse of one of the women of the family) save lives. Which, in any normal world, would make them the good guys. But the Ochoas live in Mexico City, in which there are just 45 government ambulances to support a population of around 9 million.
Mopping up the overspill is an unofficial network of private ambulances, for-profit services that ferociously compete to pick up the victims of accidents and then charge them – or at least attempt to charge them – for emergency care. The Ochoas run one such ambulance; Luke Lorentzen’s remarkable film rides along inside a vehicle that supports an extended family financially and provides a lifeline for the injured and sick. It also serves as a mobile childcare unit for the younger Ochoa boy, who prefers the outlaw thrill of prowling the streets at night to the grind of the school day. And who can blame him? Captured by a camera that frequently rattles against the sides of the hurtling ambulance, the Ochoas’ night-time escapades are electrifying and urgent, doused in strobing emergency lights and powered by adrenaline.
As the film unfolds, however, it becomes clear that the Ochoas are in the business of what looks increasingly like extortion, albeit extortion wearing a caring face. With the cops strong-arming the family for bribes and the private hospitals paying out for each patient brought in, nobody comes out of the situation well. But the patients, given a stark choice between bleeding out and being bled dry, are inevitably the losers.
