‘De Humani Corporis Fabrica’: Film Review | skin 2022

Also, David Cronenberg, there’s a new master of body horror in town. Or rather, in the case of professors, co-directors, Verena Paraveli and Lucien Casting-Taylor (Leviathan, cannabis), whose latest ethnographic work took us not only to the world of invasive medical procedures, as is done in several hospitals in Paris, but also to the human body as a documentary feature film.

Having said that Humani Corporis Factory It’s not for the faint of heart, it’s not out of the question, because unlike Cronenberg’s films, a well-illustrated flood is very real, so much so that watching it can be painful. And yet, for the viewer who resists the temptation to flee to the nearest exit, this fascinating and probing look at modern surgery is a memorable experience that makes us think of our own humanity as we look at people reduced to mere flesh and blood. . .

For more than a decade, Paravel and Casting-Taylor, members of the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Laboratory, co-founder of the latter, have used immersive film techniques to study various aspects of our existence and get physically closer to their subjects. And metaphysically, it is possible. Inside LeviathanThe first movie they shot together, and the one they printed on the map, used GoPro cameras to dive into the murky waters of a fishing expedition in Maine. Other works like cannabisAbout the cannibal Isai Sagawa, or somnolenceOver the recorded dreams of composer Dion McGregor, the rendered close-ups of moving bodies and faces transformed them into surreal, sometimes grotesque figures on screen.

These early films feel like natural predecessors. Humani Corporis Factory, which itself offers everything by piercing the skin, using microscope cameras, endoscopic images, X-rays, ultrasound probes and other instruments, to reveal eerie details within the body. Not after Joe Dante დაAncient space We swim so easily through muscle and fatty tissue, intestinal tract, arteries and major organs. We don’t always know what we’re looking at, is it the esophagus? No, that’s a penis! – But we are fascinated by what we see, which can be both difficult to hear and transnationally beautiful, like an abstract expressionist canvas, full of colors, shapes, shadows and light.

Our only guide to the procedures is audio: the voices of the French surgeons, doctors and nurses who perform them tell the story with offbeat jokes, technical jargon and, in the case of prostate surgery, which is blissfully out of control, victims are dismembered. . Nobody talks and nobody talks to the camera; This is a wall-to-wall approach, except the fly sometimes hits the body with cracks and wounds, enlarging organs and flesh a hundredfold during surgeries where daily medical miracles happen before our eyes.

Filmmakers are also downsizing to create a broader picture of the public health system, whose professionals are overwhelmed by the sheer number of patients and a lack of resources and time. Filmed in a network of hospitals and clinics in Paris, Humani Corporis Factory It reveals the high level of expertise of the well-trained medical community in France and Singfroid and the problems, including budget cuts and cuts, they face in properly caring for the sick and elderly.

Among the medical scenes portrayed, Paravel and Casting-Taylor made sure to include human life from start to finish. There’s an obvious C-section scene where some members of the audience pick up the drum, and a scene in the morgue where the nurses’ clothes are shown while the Caribbean beat plays on the radio. In both cases, the film’s approach is twofold: on the one hand, everything seems very routine, it seems like people who treat newborns and dead bodies on a daily basis; On the other hand, we look directly at life and death, which can make us feel vulnerable and aesthetically satisfied.

Paradox Humani Corporis Factory, in homage to the groundbreaking 16th-century anatomy books written by Dutch physician Andreas Vesalius, is that the further we advance in the body, the more we seem to be nothing more than the body we know. This is especially evident in the sequence in which two young doctors cut through a breast biopsy that resembles lines of charred meat next to a pit of fried meat. In the next scene, the oncologist examines the patient’s breast cancer progression under a microscope, and the images, magnified at the cellular level, resemble a collection of colorful, beautifully drawn images by Joan Mirროს.

Between surgeries, the directors continue to attack the psychiatric ward, which is full of fussy elderly people, showing how a disorder of our nervous system – first seen in traumatic brain surgery – manifests itself from the outside. These more macro images of the body working, or rather not working properly, are accompanied by shots of security guards and their guard dogs patrolling poorly lit underground corridors. At some point, the intestines filled with hospital graphite and the intestines of a patient undergoing endoscopy look the same.

That’s the power of Paravel’s and Casting-Taylor’s cinema, filling chunks of life – or, in this case, chunks of flesh – with many meanings and associations. Even the seemingly random moment at the end of the film, when the doctors and nurses let the parties in, takes on a new dimension as the DJ reflects on New Order’s “Blue Monday” and begins with the opening text: “How it feel / When you treat me like you treat me” / And you put your hands on me”. This is a question that this penetrating and profound documentary gives more than one answer.