VIFF Previews #7: De Humani Corporis Fabrica, Until Branches Bend, Know Your Place

These will be my three final VIFF Previews. The festival has begun as of today! 

De Humani Corporis Fabrica: as a writer and sometimes reviewer, I have never yet been on the box of a DVD or blu-ray, I don't think. I have credits ON a few DVDs and blu-rays, and I've had blurbs appear in promotional materials for the odd film - even had the experience of seeing part of an article I wrote for Montecristo (for Doug and the Slugs and Me) onscreen in front of me in a trailer - but if I could be on the back of the box art for the (eventual? imaginary?) physical media release for De Humani Corporis Fabrica, it would look something like this: 

"If you have a body, this movie is for you" - Allan MacInnis, Alienated in Vancouver

No, really. De Humani Corporis Fabrica is one of the greatest films - not just the greatest documentaries, but greatest films - that I've seen in years. It's important and vital and exciting in a way few documentaries and arthouse films get to be: it breaks taboos as if they never existed in the first place, to show us things few filmmakers have the chutzpah to approach, bringing us inside the human body in ways that, short of having surgery ourselves - or being in the medical profession - few of us get to go. It's groundbreaking in the way that Brakhage's The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes is groundbreaking, but it's in fact far easier to take in: I've seen the Brakhage film exactly once, and never intend to watch it again, but now I want to see De Humani Corporis Fabrica at the VIFF on the big screen, possibly more than once. It's that stunning, that essential, that remarkable an experience - the sort of film that fills you with awe and wonder. The rest of these films I've mentioned I've liked well enough, but this one amazed me.  

That said, it may not be for everyone. While some of it - internal footage of bodies undergoing surgery, not dissimilar to the sort of thing you might see when getting a colonoscopy - is too abstract to really be gross, and some of it (medical imagery showing the results of cancer treatment) is actually quite beautiful, in an abstract expressionist kind of way, there is some hard to watch stuff here. There are close ups of, for instance, penises having jackhammer-like instruments inserted in them, presumably in an attempt to break up kidney stones (it may be very close to a procedure I myself have had, but I was unconscious at the time, so I cannot say for sure; I certainly had a lot of blood coming out my penis, for some months, but, well... it's a long story). There is also cataract surgery in close-up, footage of the cancerous tissue on the inside of a severed breast, a dramatic, belly-slicing Caesarian, and much more. I have had enough surgery over the last few years that there was very little that I found truly hard to watch, but even still, I cried out occasionally, cringed. I did not vomit, I did not faint, I did not cover my eyes, though occasionally I looked away to write notes, which might have helped. 

No notes will be taken on my next viewing, but you might want to think of a coping mechanism that you can turn to if it gets a bit much...

I was left with so many questions on seeing this artful, essential documentary. Why are we afraid of our own bodies? Why can I make myself queasy, just thinking about the internal processes on which my life depends? I have, with no volition in the matter, fainted at the sight of my own blood; why the fuck would I do that? What is the evolutionary value of such a reaction - so if you are attacked and wounded you will pass out and be totally vulnerable, "Oops, saw blood, here you go, kill me?" Does a car break down if it sees gasoline? It's ridiculous! I am afraid of my own body, really I am, and so I was afraid to watch this film. 

And now I am going to be a pain in the ass to my friends about this film telling them to see it. There are some surprising bits of humour in the overheard comments of doctors performing the operations - things you imagine people say all the time (a weary urologist grousing, "I need a vacation"), things that you never want to be conscious to hear during your own surgeries ("Shit! It fell on the floor," or even worse, "It's my first time."). There is plenty of beauty - including a stunning mural at the end on the walls of a French nightclub where, I think, hospital staff are celebrating someone's graduation. The film is also not without compassion for its subjects (though the most dignity, oddly enough, seems to afforded a corpse near the film's end). And there's plenty that you will want to read as metaphor, as poetry, if you are so inclined (it is surely significant that the first really hard to watch footage in the film involves eye surgery). If you think you  have the stomach for it, so to speak - the guts - your viewing will be amply rewarded; I recommend you go with friends, so you have someone to process with afterwards, and be prepared for unusual audience reactions. There may be some. 

Until Branches Bend: People interested in seeing BC documented in film will love the premise of this feature-length film from Sophie Jarvis, about an Okanagan fruit picker who discovers a potentially invasive species inside a peach. She does the right thing in immediately showing the bug to her bosses, knowing that  her own parents' farm was devastated by a moth infestation some years back, only to discover that her bosses are not inclined to investigate. She doesn't leave matters alone, though she doesn't actively choose the role of whistleblower; ample drama ensues, the details of which I will leave for viewers to discover. 

Truth is, I had a bit of a hard time respecting the main character of this film, who is passive and disorganized about things that one cannot really afford to be passive and disorganized about (she wants to terminate a pregnancy, but misses crucial appointments, obsessing over her peach beetle); the filmmaker may have intended her as an unflattering portrait of millenials, but may have gone a bit further than she wanted, as I was unable to really embrace her as a protagonist and actually began to find her (and her way of peeling back her upper lip in consternation) somewhat irritating. Still, there aren't many made-in-BC films that evoke, at different times, Jaws, the insect microphotography of Ken Middleham, and the climax of... well, I guess that a spoiler alert is warranted, but perhaps some of you have not seen Days of Heaven? I thought the program guide was waxing hyperbolic in describing the ending of the film as "apocalyptic," but for the fruit growers of the Okanagan, what transpires surely would be. More than anything, I enjoyed the film's portrait of the region and industry, interesting stuff that happens in BC that I have never seen used in a feature film before. That alone makes the film worth your seeing, if you care about BC cinema. Maybe you'll like the heroine more than I did.

Know Your Place:  I was struck by several things, in beginning Know Your Place, which is easily my favourite Seattle film since 2004's Police Beat, and the non-documentary feature I most urge VIFF attendees to check out this year: that despite my own background being very different from the Eritrean- and Ethiopian-Americans whose lives are the centre of the film, I could identify with no difficulty with their teenage son, who is miserable and lost in ways I also felt myself miserable and lost as a young man; the miseries of youth apparently have a universal element to them, especially when the geographical background is not so different. I was also struck by how the title of the film, which had me expecting something more overtly political - a sort of "don't get uppity" warning from those above you on the social hierarchy - could be simply read as commenting on this kid's alienation - his not knowing where he is "supposed to be." I loved the richness of that double meaning, which I did not anticipate at all before beginning the film. I was also struck by the number of boarded up homes on display (something we have here too, despite our real estate boom, but so frequently occurring in the film you begin to wonder if Seattle is more depressed than you'd thought); and finally, by the sheer beauty of the cinematography by Nicholas Wiesnet, and how gorgeous a portrait of Seattle the film is. Other themes of the film include the confrontation with racism and obnoxious white privilege, the power of friendship and family, and life within immigrant communities. There is a lot more that I could say, but most of it is taken up in my interview with director Zia Mohajerjasbi... so I will direct you there.

That ends my VIFF previews, but I'll be seeing various films throughout the festival. More to come...!