Claire Simon’s prismatic, endlessly captivating portrait of the daily workings of a French Hospital, Our Body, focuses almost exclusively on the wings dedicated to women’s health. Simon’s previous documentaries have frequently centered on public institutions, thus inevitably drawing comparisons to the work of Frederick Wiseman, and for much of Our Body’s first hour, it takes a fairly similar approach to the American master’s own 1970 film, Hospital, observing, from safe remove, an array of interpersonal interactions between doctors and their patients.
These conversations, covering everything from IVF and hormone therapy for trans patients to abortion and cancer treatment, offer a depth of insight into the critical role that detailed yet achingly compassionate discourse plays in the healthcare decisions these patients make. And whether these discussions involve trans teenagers navigating potential treatment without the approval of one or both parents or an African immigrant, who has no relatives in France, preparing to give birth, Simon’s acutely trained eye captures the many ways in which mutual trust blossoms from the simple act of patience, empathy, and respect on the part of healthcare professionals. In a time when the autonomy of women, in America and elsewhere, over their own bodies is under constant attack, Our Body serves as a stark, almost utopian contrast, consistently yet effortlessly presenting women’s right to complete sovereignty as the only healthy, logical, and humane outcome.
While Our Body does primarily show doctors at their best, it resists veering into hagiography. As professionals, the medical staff are neither infallible nor all-knowing, and while many of their recommendations and diagnoses lead to positive outcomes, there are several that don’t. In one of the film’s most heart-breaking scenes, a doctor sits with her cancer-ridden patient and, while holding her hand, speaks of how proud she is that she fought so hard against the disease, but the reality is that sometimes good people lose to it no matter how much effort they put forth. The patient is clearly exhausted, and, from the looks of it, a shell of her former self, but the two share a mutual appreciation, even admiration, that is remarkably tender, yet because of Simon’s unobtrusive approach, it’s a moment completely free of any maudlin undertones. The director wisely allows this moment, and many others like it, to unfold organically and speak for itself.
As Our Body continues, it repeatedly returns to a number of patients introduced early on their subsequent appointments, treatments and surgeries. And Simon’s objective approach, which initially serves as an effective avenue into understanding the gears that keep the hospital running, shifts into a more subjective tenor, as the directors begins to converse with, and at times even comfort, various patients she films. What at first seemed to be shaping up to be an in-depth examination of a well-run, well-trained public institution also becomes something of a celebration of the resilience of the female body. Certainly Simon being a woman herself plays a large role in this, but even so, it’s hard to think of another film so explicitly about female bodies that never leers at or objectifies them.
In one unexpectedly humorous scene, a woman on the surgical table, and about to be put under, looks into the camera and says “It’s great that there’s a cinema cameraman here. I love cinema.” This is a quintessentially French moment, but it also speaks volumes about Simon’s willingness to inject a palpable warmth and compassion into the film, and its making, that so many of the patients are so willing not only to be filmed but to engage in intimate conversations with her about extremely private issues and experiences.
Nearly two hours into Our Body, Claire Simon puts her money where her mouth is, having herself filmed as she meets with an oncologist, eventually breaking into tears when the doctor informs her that she has breast cancer and the diseased breast must be fully removed. She too exhibits the same openness, in terms of being filmed during examinations and revealing her deepest fears, as many of the other patients we meet throughout the film. But Simon dedicates no more time to her own medical struggle than she does to anyone else’s, merely inserting herself as an equal part of a larger fabric.
Indeed, it’s the sheer diversity of women — their backgrounds, afflictions, body types, emotional responses, and life experiences — that is so crucial to the film’s unspoken thesis. Women’s healthcare cannot be controlled by rigid, all-encompassing laws that are completely divorced from real, lived experiences and is far better served by the type of dialectical engagement we so exhaustively see depicted here rather than from a place of wanton authority or control.
Photo courtesy of The Cinema Guild
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