De Humani Corporis Fabrica breaks the boundaries of cinema to marvel at the complexities of our bodies, but also the limitations of them. The juicy insides are gross, squishy, and messy—and a thing of beauty.

| Aug 25, 2023

As in their astonishing and immersive Leviathan, extreme close-ups and shots taken from odd places and angles sometimes transform what is seen into elegant and sublime abstractions.

| Jul 14, 2023

Keep in mind, we are talking the nuts and bolts of a hospital system, so graphic is the rule, rather than the exception. Expect to see an autopsy, cancerous tissue, a caesarean birth, a cornea transplant, a graphic spine operation and much more.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 6, 2023

... An unedited visual exploration inspired by the famous anatomical study by Dutchman Andreas Vesalius from 1543. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jul 5, 2023

The epic results simultaneously function as endoscopic body horror, as a portrait of overworked and underfunded medical staff and as a business study of death.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 4, 2023

By the time they get around to cornea surgery, those who’ve seen Phil Tippett’s “Mad God” or even “A Clockwork Orange” may have feelings of déjà vu…like cinematic punk rock Da Vinci.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 3, 2023

De Humani Corporis Fabrica is a squelchy, squishy, often gory exploration of the medical arts.

| Jun 2, 2023

It isn't easy to watch a film like De Humani Corporis Fabrica; but it may leave those interested in it for scientific, artistic or humanistic reasons fascinated. Perhaps also undone... [Full review in Spanish]

| May 26, 2023

... The film transcends its anatomical character and becomes an al fresco of social and economic norms in modern society. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 26, 2023

Just as repulsive and fascinating as it sounds.

| May 17, 2023

Human flesh is cut, punctured, probed, cracked, sliced, and sewn in this deeply affecting commentary on the fragility of life.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 16, 2023

Much of the film immerses us in an unknowable, unrecognisable world under the skin, without shape, without what Vesalius wanted to show us in the 16th century. It is an uncanny spectacle.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 15, 2023

The latest vital project from Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor of the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab... ” is an unflinching voyage into the human body, [of] “excisions and eviscerations."

| Original Score: 10/10 | May 14, 2023

Although hardly apolitical, Castaing-Taylor and Paravel’s approach is less interested in the nitty-gritty of process than in the philosophical potency of nose-on-the-glass sensation.

| May 9, 2023

Your eyes will not believe some of the things they see in this movie. The only question is whether your stomach can handle them.

| May 2, 2023

De Humani Corporis Fabrica becomes not just tense and flabbergasting but also deeply moving; it gets at the idea of a kind of spiritual and corporeal transference, the knowledge that healing other people’s bodies invariably exacts a toll on one’s own.

| Apr 28, 2023

With their sixth film, Castaing-Taylor and Paravel have managed to excavate and explore the impulse of excavation itself, and of mending and healing.

| Apr 20, 2023

A compelling and possibly important [film].

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 17, 2023

That's not to say the journey isn't worthwhile, though. I loved the candid dialogue. My mind [simply wandered too often] whenever we weren't lost inside someone's flesh.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 14, 2023

The riotous visuals of innards illustrate the many ways in which our lives are embodied, but, equally or more so, that we are basically meat.

| Apr 13, 2023