Bodyhackers
What once was achieved through makeup, concealer, blusher and highlighting is now given the permanence of flesh, fillers and scraping of bone, staples, stitches and scars, subcutaneous fat cut and reshaped or removed entirely, neurotoxins injected with microneedles to freeze muscles which would otherwise cause wrinkles to form through frowns and laughter over time.
Renée Welles suffering from “beauty deficit disorder” as it is termed by Doctor Pollard, feeling she was “born with a face that isn’t my own,” after numerous simpler procedures she is ready for the major undertaking of rhinoplasty, but encounters Denver Blake outside the facility run by Vitruvio Beauty Corp, her presence saving him when he is apparently attacked by staff, a waste analyst blessed with a perfect face who believes history is told by what is left behind.
Bodyhackers an oddity of the extreme written and directed by Carlos Conceição, shot in Portugal but set in America, Joana Ribeiro and McCaul Lombardi are Renée and Denver with Nadja’s Elina Löwensohn as Doctor Pollard, laughing at the naivety when Renée refers to Vitruvio as a hospital, the rich who refuse to accept the commonplace as any part of their lives recreating themselves as the world burns around them.
Surrounded by mirrors but unable to find what she considers her true self in her reflection, under the bandages Renée jokes about what might be revealed, “Leonardo, Michelangelo, god forbid Jack Kirby,” pushing herself further despite Pollard’s warnings her face cannot sustain the pace of surgery, the doctor already suggesting to Denver that he might wish to consider options for future-proofing his face.
A film of disassembled mannequins, a doll revolution of twisted heads, of fire and floods and altered faces atop bodies with designer mutations, with footage of actual surgeries Bodyhackers is not for the squeamish, not so much a horror as The Substance or The Ugly Stepsister but more an intellectual Eurothriller akin to Errors of the Human Body, questioning the balance of power between disaffected patient and doctor eager to create art and at what point surgery is no longer the answer.
The flesh sutured together seamlessly, the same cannot be said of the loose ends, Bodyhackers fascinating but deliberately oblique in the questions it asks, Denver’s investigation prompted by the death of his father, hinted to be have happened while under care at Vitruvio, the intimation of addictive elements in the process, the rebel chemist Denver decided he cannot trust, questions raised but the answers covered over, a film far from superficial but choosing to let its surface define it, frustratingly abrupt as it arrives at “the end of all vital functions.”
Edinburgh International Film Festival continues until Wednesday 19th August
