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 everybody in the world.
Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s previous collaborations include Leviathan and Caniba, which are exacting cinematic experiences. This film is no exception – it delves deep into human bodies, histories, lives, and truths. Not for the faint hearted – but the content is perhaps what real documentary actually is.
“A phantasmagorical journey… An eye-opening film… Through these directors’ eyes, these bodies look wondrous and unsettling, macabre and beautiful, and often uncannily unfamiliar.” The New York Times
Warning: contains close-up and graphic medical footage.