THE “WORLD’S” OPINION – NOT TO BE MISSED
The filmmaker Claire Simon, having crossed the wall of fiction more than once, remains an experienced documentary maker. In this area, she embodies a memoirist path, inclined to collect the stories of others. We would almost be tempted to say “classic”, by its way of investing in common places (the schoolyard in Recreationthe Bois de Vincennes in The wood dreams are made of), but also his clear methodology of encounter, in direct contact with things, wary of devices that are too visible.
For her latest feature film, a large-scale piece lasting almost three hours, unveiled in February in a parallel section of the Berlinale, the director went to film for seven weeks, in 2021, the gynecology-obstetrics department of the hospital Tenon, in Paris, whose female body occupies the center of activities. The possessive of the title says the essential: to invest this organic sphere of the feminine which, at the crossroads of infinitely disparate cases and paths (“ a crazy waltz of destinies “, the voice-over concludes), nevertheless outlines a community of experiences, a shared specificity.
The film opens with the motif of the journey: Claire Simon films her own steps, walking from her home to Tenon on a line which necessarily passes through the Père-Lachaise cemetery. It is therefore already a life cycle which is taking shape and which will give the film its structure, through the succession of crossed patients and the complex situations that each carries – abortion, gender transition, fertility problems, assistance with reproduction, pregnancy, childbirth, breast removal, chemotherapy, even the prospect of death. Its privileged scene, on which the film offers a striking breakthrough, is that of the consultation, a meeting space between doctor and patient, and therefore a meeting point between suffering and knowledge. However, the camera does not hesitate to look elsewhere, in the rooms, the operating room, the laboratory, the meeting room of the medical profession, where the body is considered differently, placed in other postures.
Patient-doctor face-to-face
At the forefront of Our body throne a speech issue. If the consultation brings together a symptom and a diagnosis, what is at stake is of the order of interpretation, because two discourses confront each other. To report pain, the patient is invited to confide, even more so to tell his story, because his distress does not go without historiography. On the other hand, the doctor must, of course, convert this self-narrative into a scientific response, but above all exercise careful maieutics to guide the patient towards an informed choice. Thus, this clinician ensures, through strategic questions, that the adolescent in front of her does not wish to abort under pressure from a parent. To this panel of considerate practitioners, a counterpoint is offered by the demonstrations which are held under the windows of the hospital, denouncing the gynecological violence perpetrated by certain practitioners.
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