The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes

Now obviously, this film may sound silly. The film itself is basically a 40 minute film without narrative or opinion. It is simply a film depicting autopsy on dead bodies. At first this sounds gross and disgusting, but in reality, the skin of dead bodies are really nothing much other than dirt, or at least soon to be. The idea of this being gross can be pulled out of the fact that these bodies were once alive. Yes, we see images of the insides of their bodies. We see their brains and skull. We see the cuts being placed on their skin and then being opened to reveal a massive doorway to intestines, bone, blood,liver, veins, and other things. We do not know what kinds of things that these bodies did when they were alive and moving. We are not even shown what their facial features are like really. We just see their bodies being opened and examined. Stan Brakhage, an experimental filmmaker, doesn't consider that his audience may want to know these things. Or maybe he does but is not interested enough to show us. This way, we can leave our concerns behind and hope to get something out of these gruesome things. We may or may not, but the idea of this sort of meaning is enough to watch it more than once, if not to see if we react or see something differently.

(I watched this film as part of the DVD short film collection of Stan Brakhage entitled, BY BRAKHAGE: AN ANTHOLOGY.)

The titles comes from the literal translation for the Greek word 'Autopsy". And that's exactly what this film is . 32 minutes of intense, hand-held photographing of several autopsies in extremely explicit detail.

While the film is, by nature, shocking, and sometimes hard to watch, it's far from exploitational or sensationalistic. It invites us to meditate on life, death, the body, what miracles we all are, how fragile we all are, how alone we all are in the end, and yet how alike we all are. What is a human? What were these people like in life? Are all we are really just the blobby masses of brain we see being removed, leaving only empty skull cavities? Why is the film stomach turning? Why is it so hard to look at what is inside us all? Brakhage raises all these questions, and they are valuable and unsettling to consider.

That said, for me, the film could have been shorter. It started to feel repetitive, which I'm sure was part of the intent (watching ourselves become inured to images that only minutes earlier seemed deeply disturbing), but there was a point near the end where I started to feel I had gotten what I was going to already, including that last idea.

This film is a truly artistic mastery of the form. Brakhage has succeeded in taking images, that at times can be gruesome, and combined them into a dance of sorts. His mastery of camera movement and editing have created a work that despite it's grotesque imagery, is exciting to look at. The vivid colors, and smooth motion he achieved have a soothing feeling to the viewer, rather than shocking. Through his elegance behind the camera, Brakhage manages to captivate the viewer, not with the images that he shows, rather with the pacing and and style of his work. The choice of no soundtrack either, adds to this trance-like effect experienced from this film. Overall a 10 rating and a masterpiece of Avant-Garde Cinema.

Shot by Mr. B in a busy metropoliton morgue. The recently deceased are prepared for embalming by technicians we barely see. Hands wearing rubber gloves open torsos with scalpels. Heads are opened and brains are removed. Real people are pulled apart and thrown away. Who were they? Who are we? Grainy 16mm color stock. Available light. Moderately long lenses. No sound. No music. Silence.

Most of the time I'm not really all that much a fan of Brakhage's "live action"-films. Generally, I feel they lack the evocative and creative elements of his hand-painted or more abstract films. This film though, was very engaging and interesting for several reasons. While many of Brakhage's films deal with the concept of vision and perception, very few of them incorporate standard first-person perspectives. They tend to take a more irregular and perhaps chaotic approach to the very activity of seeing and how Brakhage shows things in his "live action"-films are rarely how one would normally perceive it in the real world. His films do give different perspectives though, I think, to show the nature of things and aspects of life in a new way. And this one is a very good example of just that.

"The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes." A genius title that is so multifaceted in this context. Firstly, it's the direct translation of the world "autopsy" which this film, on the surface level, is about. Secondly, it seems to be an important guiding sentence, not only for this film, but for much of Brakhage's work. Regardless of what Brakhage had in mind when making his films, I think anyone who watch them put their own meaning to it. They see with their own eyes and thus gives it meaning. This film is so much more than just an experimental take on documenting the work of pathologists though. Watching it, one is placed face to face with death. One is placed face to face with people working with the dead, all the time. Their working days are surrounded by death. I think this picture can get one to know death better, look it in the eye and accept its inevitable presence. Driven by curiosity, the camera shows in great detail every part of the human body being weighted, dissected, seemingly being totally shred to pieces. At times it's unsettling to watch. But then you take a step back and think about the purpose of it all. This is a serious practice, advanced and perfected through centuries of development. We see craftsmen, doing the work that probably very few of us would ever want to do or even think about. And in the end, what they do is a benefit for the humankind as much as whatever anyone do.

It's all very natural. The things shown that we may find repulsive and disgusting, is what we all are made of. And Brakhage's quick, unusually explorative style highlights this in a very admirable way. The lack of sound of course just keeps the focus entirely on the dead human body, torn apart with deep respect.