6. The Act Of Seeing With One's Own Eyes (1971)
Directed by esteemed documentary maker Stan Brakhage, the title is a literal translation of the word 'autopsy'. And yes, it is autopsies galore in a busy city morgue. No sound, no music - just the unpeeling of the mysterious human body which somehow works when we are alive, but is really just a lump of skin, bones, entrails when we are dead. The demystification of the autopsy process is very morbid to behold as organs are taken out of the body to be dissected and weighed. Faces are peeled off corpses like a banana to get at the brain. This is death folks. No sentimentality or reasoning to soften the blow. I am reminded of a Philip Larkin poem called 'Ambulances' which has the ominous line "All streets in time are visited" and it is the same with mortuary tables, we will all end up on them someday, having our intestines rummaged through by someone who doesn't give a toss - just another dead body. Brakhage's film expertly portrays this universal fact.