“De humani corporis fabrication”
Year: 2022
Premiere: 26 May 2023
★★★★
Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor push their own limits as filmmakers in a new, fearless examination of bodies, medicine, and visibility. Building on the stark, immersive ethos of their earlier works Leviathan (2012) and Caniba (2017), this documentary ventures into a territory where clinical procedure and human vulnerability collide in an often overwhelming, breathtaking display. It is a study not merely of anatomy, but of the landscapes that lie beneath skin—the hidden maps of our form and the stories that anatomy tells when observed with an unflinching eye. As the film unfolds, the camera lingers on moments that are both brutal and intimate, inviting viewers to reckon with what bodies endure and what they disclose about care, identity, and mortality. Paravel and Castaing-Taylor do not shy away from discomfort; instead, they render it as part of a larger meditation on existence. The result is a work that feels suspended between medical documentary and visceral cinema, a journey that unsettles, astonishes, and lingers long after the screen goes dark.
The film traverses surgical theatres and hospital wards, moving from the brain to the bowels, from the sight of an eyeball being transplanted to the clinical precision of instruments attached to the body. It centers not only on the procedures themselves but on the people who perform them—the surgeons, nurses, technicians, and caregivers whose hands align with the instruments in a ritual of care and calculation. In doing so, it captures casual conversations and candid confessions that reveal the human dimensions behind every intervention. The imagery is relentless, offering views into organs, cavities, and the mechanical realities that support life, while also confronting the viewer with a sense of awe and disquiet. The film often feels like an ascent into an almost otherworldly space, where the ordinary rules of perception are upended and the body becomes a landscape to be explored with both curiosity and reverence. Though not all moments are comfortable, the experience is unforgettable, a testament to the directors’ willingness to probe the edges of what cinema can show about the body and its limits.
The project was undertaken over several years in French medical facilities, grounding its experimental approach in real environments and real people. Viewers are invited to watch, listen, and reflect as the imagery pairs clinical detail with philosophical undertones, raising questions about consent, agency, and the ethics of representation in documentary filmmaking. The film does not flatter or sensationalize its subject matter; instead, it treats each scene as a doorway into larger conversations about health, humanity, and the fragility that connects us all. The result is a work that is as informative as it is disconcerting, a rare blend of documentary rigor and cinematic daring that lingers in the memory long after the screen has faded.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JM_llD_A1s