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Vloch observed the situation from the other side of the camera. He knew there was another story to be told.
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Accidental Hero
by Lital Bet Yosef, “Maariv” Photo by: Yossi Aloni
Tzvika Vloch was busy filming his documentary series on hospitals when he suddenly discovered he had developed lymphoma cancer. His decision was instantaneous: add another protagonist to the series – himself. The result is the series, “True Moments” (Channel One), and Vloch’s new lease on life. “This series simply saved my life,” he states, three years into remission.
Hospitals are considered gloomy and traumatic places and only look good when a teary-eyed Katherine Heigl is in the background. Documentary filmmaker, Tzvika Vloch thought the same thing. For years, the only doctor he had any contact with was Dr. Fischer, and this, only because he had long hair. But then his father developed a heart disease. “I lived with him day and night, in the ICU”, Vloch says. “You wander around the hospital, you talk to families, find out a bit about your father’s illness and you discover heroic and difficult stories. God is testing us. So I said to myself, what could be better than a series about this?”
Fine, some things are better. Hamas, for example. However, it is said that in extreme situations, the human brain has the ability to console itself even when facing the most terrible things. Vloch’s new outlook led to the making of documentary films like “Daffy, A True Story”, the story of a young girl with cystic fibrosis and “Haim Lev, the Story of a World Champion”, telling the story of the world champion in tennis for the disabled. Both aired on Channel 1 and received good reviews.
Until then he had worked mainly on commercials and on his brother-in-law, Yigal Shilon’s “Candid Camera”. When the secrets of the sterile hospital corridors unfolded before him, Vloch went from being a lightweight director, producer and cameraman to a respected creator.
His new series, “True Moments” contains many death-threatening stories from the field. They were all taken from the Sheba Medical Center over an eight-year period.They include a 16 year-old girl with a hole in her heart, a seven year-old boy who suffered a serious head injury in a traffic accident, a patient from Cyprus in a race after a heart donor. Vloch doesn’t take pity on his viewers. His camera shows all the facets of paralyzing pain contained in the word “anatomy”. Bleeding body parts, locked operating room, helpless family members, nothing is hidden from the brave and non-compromising eye of the camera. So uncompromising that in the course of the filming, Vloch, himself, developed cancer. It was then that real life became more real than reality itself and Vloch observed the situation from the other side of the camera. He knew there was another story waiting to be told.
Three years and two months after recovering, Tzvika Vloch, 51, is up to his neck in the editing room. Not bad since not long ago those around him were betting on how much time he had left. The most generous gave him 60 days. “This series saved my life, I’ll find closure that will release me.”
Vloch remembers well the day it all started. “I presented my idea to the then Deputy Director of ShebaMedicalCenter”, he says. “I explained that I wanted to go inside the operating rooms and I especially wanted to talk to the medical team in layman’s terms. Because in my father’s case, I learned how they could brush me off in a second by using medical terms that would take me several days to understand. Here, when I was drawn into this world known as “the human body”, I felt I was growing in a fascinating world. Anyone watching this series will discover people’s human struggles in situations we could all find ourselves in at any given moment.
But won’t viewers of this series lose their will to live?
“I don’t think so. I’d like them to walk away from this series with the ability to not give up. Life isn’t just a happy ending. So why must we show that on TV? Perhaps one day, if we are faced with a similar situation, we will have the tools to deal with it.”
Surprisingly, apart from two families, everyone gave their immediate consent to be filmed. “One of the most difficult things was to ask for the families’ consent”, Vloch explains. “When things are going well, everyone is happy, all is euphoric. But what happens when something goes wrong, as happened with one of the protagonists? They didn’t throw my camera out, I was the one who had trouble filming. You see the tragedy, a boy may die, and you’re not thinking about the film, you don’t think about anything. But the family is glad it has documentation,
because it is a type of commemoration.
Vloch, a total-type person found himself moving into the hospital, all behind the sheltered black and white eye of the camera. “I couldn’t tear myself away from it, but I couldn’t share it with anyone else either”, he says. “Many times, people would look at me like I was unreal. I was the only one who could understand what I was talking about. The media reports about people trying to kill each other and in the hospital, people make tremendous efforts to save one another. I related to the distress and in the evenings, when I returned home, no one wanted to listen to me. I chose to accompany my father from the beginning but this decision also messed up my career. Apart from this series, I hadn’t worked for several years. I hated the world, I was burned out but I created something.”
So that’s what these sad families gave you? Meaning?
“Yes, I guess so. The reality I experienced while filming helped me keep a perspective on life. I acquired families. You share very unique experiences with them. You will never be strangers again. Moreover, my preoccupation with the series prepared me for my illness.”
The cruel twist of fate that changed the series and his life, which for Vloch is one and the same, occurred when he found out he had stage four lymphoma cancer, the most advanced stage. “I felt very weak”, he says, “and then I began to wake up in the middle of the night, soaked in sweat. It was so bad, I’d have to change the sheets twice a night. I had a high temperature, my lymph nodes were so swollen
I almost choked and I began to shiver, regardless of the weather.
After three weeks, Vloch went to see a doctor. First, he was told it was mononucleosis and then, mumps. Not cancer. Until he woke up one morning with a cement block in his throat. A week later he stood, petrified as he heard the most terrifying words in medical jargon, ‘It’s not good news.’ “I think my face went blank”, he recalls. I felt like this was the end. Whatever happened, I was finished. I went to the mall
and I felt terrible. I saw all the shops and felt I didn’t want anything.The only person I told was the income tax clerk. I said, ‘I’ve just been told
that I have cancer, so forgive me, I really couldn’t care less’, and I hung up.”
You didn’t blame yourself? For years you documented people whose paths
crossed with death and now, suddenly, it was happening to you.
Not for a moment. What was I guilty of? You don’t get cancer from walking around a hospital. It seems like an obvious connection but if you think about if for a moment, you realize it’s fate. And this type of cancer isn’t related to cigarettes, which made me a little happy. Cigarettes are my weakness. Not for a moment did I think about why it happened. I wanted to be healthy. Apart from this series, I felt
I had accomplished everything that I had wanted to. It’s true, I don’t have a family, but I didn’t think of that at all. On the contrary. Maybe I was even a little happy that I wouldn’t cause anyone pain.”
When he shaved off his long hair before undergoing chemotherapy, he decided to become a part of the series. “My sister asked if it was ok to film me and we made a big deal out of it”, he says. “My thoughts were on the series because being ill is basically boring. When I wasn’t thinking about the series, I considered the possibility that I wouldn’t beat this illness. I found a place in Switzerland that carried out euthanasia. You’re left alone in a room and you poison yourself. I thought this was wonderful. Although this was against my nature, I felt I didn’t want to live and suffer and end up going nowhere. Creating is a form of medication for me.
No longer a need for a watch
This went on for a year. He turned yellow. Then gray and then off-white. Then his eyebrows fell out. He had chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant, a collapsed lung and one day, in a morphine daze, he began to see a strange visitor. “It wore a kind of colorful jelabiya and I don’t know if it was a man or a woman but I was never scared. It didn’t talk to me, just stood there, by my bed. After rubbing
my eyes a lot, it disappeared. Then I stopped rubbing my eyes so I could study it, and it disappeared. I’m still waiting for it to come back. When I think about it, this figure protected me.”
After getting sick, Vloch stopped wearing a watch. Time has no significance in the hospital. The hands move differently, the medication turns night into day. “I know the cancer may come back”, and he chooses his words slowly, almost whispering. “Once every four months I show up at my doctor’s for a check-up and hope that she won’t spoil the party. But the disease put me in touch with myself too. I learned to risk asking for help. It was sad for a moment, when people ran away from me, as if I was contagious. When I would meet an acquaintance, I would put my hand out to say hello and he would pull away. But I learned
not to dwell on it. I don’t want less now just because I was ill. I still want the fairytale ending and to keep wanting more is a responsibility. That’s living.”
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