Screen/Society--"De Humani Corporis Fabrica" (Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, 2022)

Film screening:

"De Humani Corporis Fabrica"
(Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, 2022, 118 min, France, DCP)

Five centuries ago, anatomist André Vésale opened up the human body to science for the first time in history. Today, "De Humani Corporis Fabrica" opens the human body to the cinema. It reveals that human flesh is an extraordinary landscape that exists only through the gaze and attention of others. As places of care, suffering and hope, hospitals are laboratories that connect every body in the world.

"An astonishing dive into the human body. A real-life 'Fantastic Voyage'. Remarkable. It left this writer with a deeper understanding of the proverbial, universal self - and maybe with what it means to be human." - A.A. Dowd

"A phantasmagorical journey... An eye-opening film.... Through these directors' eyes, these bodies look wondrous and unsettling, macabre and beautiful, and often uncannily unfamiliar. Critic's Pick!" - Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times

"Extraordinary... digs deep into the human body and opens up landscapes as otherworldly-and harrowing-as any you're likely to see. The result is a work of purest corporeal poetry... and a remarkably unvarnished, sympathetic portrait of doctors and nurses at work."- Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

"A movie that simply has everything: sadness and humor, death (at the morgue) and birth (when we see a Caesarean section), camaraderie and coldness." - Ben Kenigsberg, RogerEbert.com