What it’s about: “About” may be a strong word here, but the film consists entirely of 16mm footage shot by Brakhage at a Pittsburgh morgue, consisting of actual autopsies, from the preparation of the body to the opening of internal cavities, removal of organs, washing, and embalming.

Reflections: Not one for the squeamish, this is stark and confrontational, even by Brakhage’s standards. He doesn’t shy away from any of it: the human body is meat, skulls pulled away to expose brains, swollen, fleshy genitals and extremities, blood, fat, muscle, all of it. There is something deeply, viscerally (literally) upsetting about it, and the utter silence of the film leaves you to confront that, to be uncomfortably reminded what you’re made of.

And yet. Once you sort of get used to it–not a small feat–one starts to see the beauty Brakhage is pulling out. Shifting film stock, sometimes almost angelic lighting, and a quality that’s harder to explain–the calm, collected, objectvity of the camera becomes… not comforting, but almost revelatory. Watching it, I couldn’t help but think about the aestheticized death scenes in something like Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal series–there is almost something similar here, but without the tastelessness of fakery. “This is what happens when we die, and we all will. Don’t look away. Can you see something miraculous in this?”

Even among the crowd who might be inclined to watch a 32-minute, silent, abstract art film, this is hard to recommend, cos it’s a lot to handle. But it’s not exploitative–there is thought and dignity in the way its presented. If you can stomach it.