‘Our Body’ Review: Patience

Slightly previous its midpoint, the almost three-hour documentary “Our Body” hits its stride and by no means lets up, because the movie sutures scenes of sufferers — youthful and older, cisgender and trans — on the gynecological unit of a Paris hospital. In a potent and intimate sequence, the movie goes from a midwife-aided start to a C-section supply, then to a mom who has skilled painful issues throughout her supply and, lastly, to a lady attempting to navigate her being pregnant whereas in chemotherapy.

After one mom makes use of a smartphone to document her new child’s wails, our tears could already be warranted. But it’s the leap from this sequence to a robust doctor-patient session — one for the documentary’s director, Claire Simon — that provides a recent layer of depth to this already profound meditation on sufferers, and ladies at giant.

“You see to the film,” the physician tells Simon, because the filmmaker receives a most cancers analysis. “I’ll see to you.”

Simon’s personal phrases to her care supplier, about going from filmmaker to affected person, appear to talk to the bounds of cinema-forged empathy, even because the documentary supplies one other achingly human instance of its energy.

“Our Body” contains footage of a vehement demonstration protesting gynecological violence that’s staged outdoors the hospital. But there are extra scenes of compassion than of medical conceitedness. The sufferers typically meet exhausting news with equanimity. How a lot the presence of a digicam has to do with this, we will’t totally know. But Simon’s perception within the interconnectedness but singularity of the numerous sufferers is palpable. She rewards our endurance with a deeper understanding of our our bodies and ourselves.

Our Body
Not rated. In French and English, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 48 minutes. In theaters.