De Humani Corporis Fabrica: an almost unbearably intense journey into the human body

In 1543, the Dutch physician and anatomist Andreas Vesalius published what’s generally recognised to be the first detailed study of human anatomy, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (“On the Fabric of the Human Body”); and it’s his title that Anglo-French documentarians Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Leviathan, 2012; Caniba, 2017) have borrowed for their (literally} penetrating survey of the workings of a group of hard-pressed hospitals in North Paris.

As in Leviathan, there’s no voice-over narration to provide context, no talking-head interviews; all we hear are the voices of the medics and – occasionally – of the patients. For those of us with little or no expert anatomical knowledge it’s not always easy to tell just what operations are being carried out. It hardly matters. The visual and emotional impact comes from the vivid colours and textures of the internal organs: the urgent red of blood, the purplish blue of veins, the pulpy off-white of exposed fatty tissues being drilled, sliced and probed by the surgeons.

An MRI scan of a dissected eyeball is rendered with animated multicoloured brilliance, wriggling and pulsating, and the cancerous bulk of an excised breast tumour appears as lumpy as overcooked minced beef. The sense of human vulnerability becomes at times almost unbearably intense.

Such intensity is partially offset by the dialogue we hear exchanged between the surgeons while they operate, much of it complaining about tensions caused by overwork. “I’m on the verge of a heart attack,” laments one man, “I haven’t even had an erection all day.” Just as well, in many cases, that the patients weren’t conscious to hear what was being said over their prone bodies. “This guy’s weirdly put together.” “What are you doing?” “I don’t know.” “This is bad, very bad. I should never have started this.”

Unsurprisingly, we rarely gain a clear view of the faces of the medics; they’re in deep shadow, masked, or shot from oblique angles. We do meet some of the patients: a fully conscious man talking to the surgeon who’s drilling into his skull; two old ladies from the dementia ward, hobbling together along dimly-lit corridors, one repeatedly telling the other to “Hurry up”.  This element of the film, though sympathetic, loses something of the queasy tension exercised by the incursions into human flesh.

To round things off, a riotous party for the hospital personnel. We hear, but don’t see, the energetic music and dancing, while the camera pans round the bawdy cartoons drawn on the wall, culminating in an irreverent pastiche of the Last Supper. And finally, in what feels like a defiant touch of optimism: Gloria Gaynor singing “I Will Survive”. 

 ► De Humani Corporis Fabrica is available to stream on MUBI UK & Ireland now.