davincigreen brilliant archived footage from all across the world and an original concept plus score by jonny greenwood of radiohead. very humanistic approach to viewing life and it's stages of consciousness. at one point in the film you see a man set a piece of crumpled up paper on fire w/ his mind. lots of birth scenes- FYI for the weak stomached. the dreams section of the film is especially interesting. also, there is an awesome website where you can hear some of the score by greenwood. hope you enjoy it as much as i did. initiates intellectual conversation easily and is a great film for any foreign/experimental film freak. the tribal sequences of war are also especially exhilarating.

jessewolden BODYSONG is a must-see emotional roller-coaster build up out ofclips of found footage from all periods of film-making from all overthe world. A cinematic experience in the true sense of the word, usingimages and music (a fantastic diverse film score from Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood) to speak to the audience on a gutand heart level. In a time where the individual is paramount thisintelligent film dares to push you to think about what it means to behuman.At first the film follows the cycle of life, starting with conception, acascade of births, growing up, mating rituals and sex, followed byviolence, destruction, old age, illness and death. Because there isno voice-over used, the images are incredibly strong. There is noway to escape the visual, you cannot box it with knowledge andtherefore the less pleasant sides of humanity are straight in yourface. We are all animals driven by procreation and lust for power,moving in herds and I watching this, am one of them. I think I amspecial, but I am not.Fortunately director Simon Pummell then shows us the redemptive side of humanity: the search for meaning. Through religion and ritual, art, dreams, beliefs and solidarity.Particularly interesting is the introduction of speech very late in thefilm, adding cinematic ally as a positive, the discerning factorsbetween animal and human: voice and reason.The film ends upbeat, pulling out into space, leaving the humanspecies on their planet, with all their smallness and bignessticking over, generation after generation.The Bodysong website delivers finally something very few filmwebsites do: a meaningful experience in itself and not just apromotional tool. The website has all the clips used in the film andit is on the website you can find out what, when and by whom. Thechoice for mostly amateur non-fiction footage makes absolutesense to me as this film speaks about real people. That thechoice is also highly personal (and anyone else making this filmwould choose different clips) echo's and underlines the theme ofthe film: we are all the same, but different.

kultur-terror The documentary genre is renowned for its creative filmic style and original brilliance the creators of said films bring to the screen. In the case of BODYSONG writer/director Simon Pummell in his debut feature is left to delve deep into the realms of his mind where anything and everything is possible. Pummell brings his ferociously honest film to life via the avenue of Jonny Greenwood, from the band 'Radiohead', with his immense musical genius creating a score worthy of the greatest motion picture.The addresses the common truths throughout all society and more importantly the human race as the name suggests BODY being the overriding theme of the feature. All aspects of life are addressed and recorded vividly with no image censored leaving the spectator with a true sense of wonder and horror about the characteristics of the species depicted on screen. The shear volume of information and constant moving images of 'us' becomes a wanted tedium. Repetition seems to have no grounds when up against some of the most beautiful events that can ever occur for example the explicitly shown growing and birth of a human child and the resultant joy of the given parents. Only the most hardened soul could create disgust when viewing such magnificent beauty. One is truly in love with the idea of the human race and thus finds oneself deeply devoted to such a picture. Common curiosity is above all the true reason for placing yourself into the realms of Pummells' mind. This curiosity is convulsed with images that at the same time will deeply sicken most but also when realised as an entirety or as a 'human' they become less horrifying and more of a pragmatically true representation of the human species as we knew and know it. With all metaphorically decorative elements removed this film is showing you nothing more than human life, love, sex, death but in a way which truly mesmerises the soul. Whilst showing the spectator the standard characteristics of the human species Pummell chooses to show feats of human brilliance from the ignition of paper with pure mental strength to the hilariously exquisite contorting gymnastics of a man and his dog. Everything amazes solely because of the blatant and uncensored truth that is filmed. One cannot find in him a reason to criticise this feature due to its pure brilliance from the filmic techniques to the excellent score but more criticisms of the human race. You may find yourself in total emotional disarray that one human can do such things to another, but the film is 'us' and if we are like this then we must not blame the film for its grotesque frankness. More importantly blame us for giving Pummell the resources and the imagery to work with when creating the picture. The character in this film is humans not one but all and the people playing the species do it with realism and fortitude. Actors unconsciously playing a role that are generic to them, i.e. humans doing what they do best, being human. All the characters in the film have a story they are real people and what makes BODYSONG so unique is that an Internet database was created alongside the film with the background of all the people shown in the feature. One is left with only a few words to persuade others to watch BODYSONG them being, IF YOU ARE HUMAN WATCH THIS FILM.

bfinn The premise of this film is certainly worthy. It's a collage of film archive documentary footage which depicts the complete range of humanity and human experience, starting with birth and going on through various themes (love, war and the like), set to an interesting soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood (the music is in fact by far the best bit).I expect some people thought this film was wonderful, and I came to it well-disposed myself, but ended up thinking otherwise. Sorry to sound cynical, but given a half-decent film archive, a pair of scissors, a roll of sticky tape and a few days, I could have done quite a bit better myself.It became apparent after a while that almost all of the footage dated from the 70s or earlier, and it certainly showed. Crackly, poor colour, etc. And it was pretty second-rate footage too.Lots of shots not particularly well filmed, ranging from the uninteresting to the mildly interesting. The themes were worthy (that word again) enough - people being happy, people being sad, people being shot at, etc. But with a handful of exceptions, you just wouldn't have chosen this particular footage to illustrate the themes. Rather than being inspired by the images, I ended up feeling that I was supposed to be inspired by them, but they just weren't very good.I couldn't help wondering: given the vast scope of this film - potentially depicting all and any aspect of humanity and human endeavour - was this the best that could be found? Given the billions of hours of film that have ever been shot, was this really the top 83 minutes of all?I'm afraid not. No moon landings, Beatles, Hiroshimas or other spectacular or memorable imagery here. Working down from the top of the pile of all footage ever taken, you'd find this stuff somewhere in the bottom half - not quite cutting-room floor or home video stuff, but not choice material either. Kind of old, mediocre stuff.I assume the constraint here was budget. Presumably what happened is that the film-makers paid to use whatever they could find in a cheap archive of old footage. You get what you pay for.And what you got was basically a load of crackly second-rate old footage on worthy themes cobbled together. Sorry to sound cynical, but that's all this film was.Incidentally the opening few minutes, which includes (literally) about 30 different slow-motion graphic sequences of childbirth (all also apparently dating from the 1970s), are fairly gross and I'm surprised no-one in the cinema passed out or at least walked out during this.However, as time wore on various people did get up and leave, and in the end I joined them.