First-time director Stephen Graves crafts an intimate portrait of his father, Bill Graves, a former doctor who’s barely left home since a rare medical condition forced surgeons to remove his colon and parts of his intestines in 1997. The movie introduces us to the agonizing details of his condition (he must drain waste from a sac connected to his abdomen) before getting into the things in life that make him grateful: his loving marriage, his vibrant dreams (likely enhanced by the heavy-duty painkillers he takes daily), and memories of his libertine youth. Graves attempts to re-create his father’s subjective experience through a variety of unsettling experimental flourishes, most impressively an unpredictable editing scheme that evokes stream-of-consciousness writing.
A Body Without Organs
1 hour 21 min • 2013