The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes

Autopsy means the same with the film in Greek language: this means that Brakhage proposes us to observe the bare and obvious existence of the Being in a cinematic space. Interestingly at a date coinciding with the birth of political American cinema, he reveals the falsehood and plastic nature of the conventional "images" amd compels us to think of a new and cruel ontology of narrative. As every "construction" the creators of this story are doctors.

Possibly one of the most confrontational works on death ever made, guiding the viewer through multiple autopsies of men and women without any attempt to soften what you see. It is both an incredibly sad and incredibly hopeful one, which shows how physically mortal we are yet also allows a spiritual interpretation if the viewer desires it and shows the beauty of the body as well as confront death. It was one of the most powerful films I have ever seen and is a true masterpiece.

difficult to watch, nonetheless good. it dignifies the workers at the morgue

Is there any film which so completely and brutually confronts the viewer with the realities of death? I think the real brilliance of this movie is what Brakhage DOESN'T do, his sense of restraint and focus. His camera never flinches, there is no commentary, no metaphor, no cutaways. There are no superfluous scenes, nothing that doesn't relate to the physicality of death and the body. This is all about seeing death with your own eyes, and it can actually change the way you see yourself.

Just after finishing this I felt an absolutely unreal sense of my own physicality. Like, I looked at my hands as I moved them and was remarkably aware of the tendons, blood vessels, and muscles. I took in a deep breath and could visualize my lungs inflating. This movie was able to construct a clear mental link between my mind and my body like I've never experienced before. It also made the line between life and death seem paralyzingly thin.

Experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage, camera in hand, was let into an actual busy metropolitan morgue and shot this. Edited down to half an hour, basically what you see here is real corpses being pathologically tested, dissected and/or taken apart (scalped, disemboweled, dismembered, etc.) by morticians. There is no sound. What is the value of this? I don't know. It shows you what your insides look like.

The special effects are fantastic.

The poking and prodding I could deal with, but the cutting and peeling of skin and bone, aaaaaaahhhh. 30 minutes feels a little excessive but with the silence it definitely allows a sense of isolation to set in and make you think about life, death and the human body.

The horror... The horror!

Certainly situates one within one's own body.

oddly watchable

The gore was unpleasant and occasionally disturbing, but what resonates with me most is the corpse's face we briefly glimpse at the beginning. As the coroner pokes and prods at him, attempting to discover the cause of death, it occurred to me that there was nothing ostensibly wrong. And as such, this corpse, which is clearly not human yet is aesthetically identical, is tangible proof that one's humanity lies beyond the confines of the body. Now get my ass in a Robot Suit, motherfuckers.

Must-see

Brakhage's best and most relatable film. A subject that normally turns my stomach made oddly beautiful.

In a word: ew. Just ew. Yes, it really is almost entirely autopsy footage. A whole lot of detail about human anatomy that you really didn't want to know. Somehow I sat through the whole thing. You can't call it a bad film, really, but I couldn't possibly recommend this to anyone unless he was doing gore FX for an upcoming movie

Not much work from the director here, though it's a very interesting watch. Beautiful, sad, ugly, fascinating, and disturbing all at the same time.

I hate you brakhage

Stunning, beautiful, had to turn it off partway through. A bit too human to watch dispassionately.

some people say that in order to know the horrors of the world, one need only observe them in their full reality. undoubdtedly this is the most pure distillation of that philosophy. the reality of death as presented here is tortuous to look at. nevertheless, i can only feel that taking footage of this nature and presenting it, without comment, as a masterpiece of film, or even as any sort of art at all, is sickening.

10 Ocak 2012, & Ilk verdigim puan: 35 Yorumdan, metafordan arindirilmis gercek. belki bir sekilde kisinin yasama ve kendisine olan bakis acisini degistirebilecek gucte. ama asil soru, sinema, bir 'kurucusu' olmadan salt gercekcilik ile pornoya ulasmaz mi? bence Brakhage bu etkili isinde bir sey 'kurmamis'. filmi degersiz kilan bu (2. izleme: 2014: sinema bir kurucu olmadan daha muazzam olabiliyor. -ki burada kurucu var- bu filmi ozumsemek biraz da deneyimle alakali. 20 yil sonra ne dusunecegim?)

Brakhage is content to simply document here, and that's certainly enough. This may be my contrarianism talking, but similar to Blood of the Beasts (Franju, 1949) I found myself thinking more about the living beings depicted than the dead ones. Maybe as a flip side to Window Water Baby Moving, it goes behind closed doors to show us the visceral laboring to be done at the other end of a life.

Disturbingly poor photography. The subject matter deserves at least good focus.

Uncanny Valley: The Movie

Serving advice: mute after 10 minuets and play Red Mecca by Cabaret Voltaire.

Unsettling for reasons I can't quite pinpoint.

I'm not sure if this can be considered a thing of beauty by any angle, it's horrific and uncomfortable, but those elements make it fascinating. Thank God this film had no sound; can you imagine the sound of the opening of the skulls or the cutting of the ribs? What a job.

Still, not impressed.