Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
At a morgue, forensic pathologists conduct autopsies of the corpses assigned. "S. Brakhage, entering, WITH HIS CAMERA, one of the forbidden, terrific locations of our culture, the autopsy room. It is a place wherein, inversely, life is cherished, for it exists to affirm that no one of us may die without our knowing exactly why. All of us, in the person of the coroner, must see that, for ourselves, with our own eyes. It is a room full of appalling particular intimacies, the last ditch of individuation. Here our vague nightmare of mortality acquires the names and faces of OTHERS. This last is a process that requires a WITNESS; and what 'idea' may finally have inserted itself into the sensible world we can still scarcely guess, for the CAMERA would seem the perfect Eidetic Witness, staring with perfect compassion where we can scarcely bear to glance." – Hollis Frampton
Stan Brakhage's silent documentary of real autopsies is one of the most singular works in avant-garde cinema — a merciless, uncommented confrontation with mortality and the body. Cinematography earns a 4 for Brakhage's characteristically precise, almost painterly camera work that transforms clinical horror into something approaching the sublime; his framing and light management in this deeply difficult environment are exceptional. Novelty is equally high: there is simply nothing else quite like this film — its refusal of narration, music, or editorial mediation makes it utterly distinctive even within Brakhage's own body of work. Plot scores low because there is no narrative architecture in any conventional sense, only accumulation; the film demands endurance rather than engagement with story. Acting is inapplicable in the traditional sense (real pathologists, real corpses), so it rates accordingly low. The ending — the film simply stops — is consistent with its anti-rhetorical stance, neither cheap nor particularly powerful as a structural gesture.