An Easy Pill to Swallow
1978 · 29m · Canada
Directed by Robert Lang
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, provocative
Doctors and patients debate Canada's heavy use of tranquilizers in an extended dialogue for and against the drugs. The film asks whether any prescription can truly be an easy pill.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 29-minute essay-doc about tranquilizer policy sounds like public-service pablum, but Lang refuses easy answers—the dialogue form lets contrary positions breathe without resolution, which is genuinely unsettling in a way sanctimonious docs aren't.
This sits squarely in the essay-film lineage of Marker and Godard, using structured debate as formal rigor; the extended dialogue format recalls Grierson's tradition of public inquiry through cinema, and the 1978 moment—peak anxiolytic consumption—gives it historical weight that compounds with every rewatch.
The film's entire architecture hinges on one choice: trusting the human voice and argument itself to carry the inquiry, no B-roll crutch, no musical manipulation—that restraint is what makes the disagreement feel earned rather than planted.