In the words of Barbie from Barbie (2023), “Do you guys ever think about dying?”
Well, do you? I know, it’s a thought people always try to avoid because just the idea of yourself sleeping forever as life will continue on without you is quite a hard pill to swallow. Bottom-line, death is a scary thing. As someone who even claims to not be afraid of it, it is still somewhat unsettling to think about regardless, especially at such a young age of twenty-four. Was it because I spent my teenage years being emo? It may very much be but I feel like regardless of my aesthetic choices and music taste, there was a point in my life where I was questioning everything. I questioned what the purpose of life actually is, our education system here in the Philippines, religion, the government, my sense of self and identity, everything. So I believe death would be an inevitable concept to question as well. I think what makes us young folk so fearful of such a concept is because we feel like we still haven’t found our own sense of accomplishment. However, I can’t speak for everyone out there but for me, although I love the ocean and would rather live there than on land, I don’t want to sleep with the fish just yet because I feel like I still haven’t really fulfilled my own sense of accomplishment. At the same time though, I feel like I can accept it if it does come. I don’t really know how to explain it but it could be the fact that I was once suicidal and have attempted suicide back when I was incredibly depressed as a teenager. That could have brought me to terms with the idea of death and dying if it were to come.
*For those who are concerned: I do want to make it abundantly clear though that I am not anymore suicidal. My well being has since improved, and I am also in a much better and mature mindset at this point in my life. I also see now that I have so much more to live for so dead is the last thing I want to be now.*
You’re probably wondering, why am I even bringing this up? Well it was because in my last entry, I wrote about my thoughts on exploitation cinema and I want to dive into specifics here and talk about an example of exploitation cinema that I failed to mention in my previous entry. This film, although extremely morbid and unsettling, is quite insightful and even educational I dare say. I’m going to be talking about the film Faces of Death; a mondo film directed by John Alan Schwarts (Conan Le Cilaire was his pseudonym) released in 1978. To briefly explain what a mondo film is, it is a subgenre of exploitation cinema taking the form of a documentary that often tackles particularly taboo or morbid subjects. Mondo films are also known as “shockumentaries” or “pseudo-documentaries.” Faces of Death, to keep it simply, is a mondo film tackling the incisive curiosity on death. It’s also worth mentioning that this movie was banned in 46 countries and distribution of the film is completely illegal in Great Britain adding it to the list of “video nasties.” Despite the rise of upset amongst critics on the films, Schwartz would go on to make three more sequels. A reboot starring Barbie Ferreira (Euphoria), Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things) and singer-songwriter Charli XCX is also currently in production.
The movie is incredibly unsettling with non diegetic sound choice and cinematography. One thing that makes a good horror movie, in my opinion, is not the jumpscares, but rather the lack thereof. One movie I’d like to recommend that does this perfectly is a Japanese horror film called Pulse. Pulse is easily one of the creepiest movies I have ever seen and I can tell you that there isn’t a single jumpscare in the movie. Even though Faces of Death is not categorized as a horror movie per se, it still projects the feeling of discomfort and a sinking unsettling feeling to the audience. I would also like to give an honorable mention to the power of film grain. I could go on forever talking about how amazing film grain is in not only cinema but in many forms of visual art. It’s incredibly powerful in horror movies because it degrades and gives an analog feel to any shot. I know that Faces of Death was filmed in the 70’s and that was already the quality of shots back then but you can still see films using film grain in the age of HD TV and 4K. Pulse was released back in 2001 and the usage of film grain and color grading impacts the film greatly and adds some sort of decay to the shots. The 2023 film, Saltburn, utilizes film grain to generate nostalgia to the scenes, giving them an analog look.
I did mention that Faces of Death is insightful and educational in some way, which is a peculiar claim to make considering that it is a documentary presenting death in different ways, and I don’t just mean reenactments of death; the corpses and even some of the deaths taking place in the film are real and actually happening. This presentation of real life death makes the film just way more unsettling than it already is. However, I say it is a bit humanizing because we forget that these corpses were once alive and lived their own unique lives. Every single cadaver and corpse seen have names and stories of the souls that once inhabited them and all stories do have to come to an end. Another aspect of the movie I love is the philosophical approach to death; how humans are also one of the biggest causes of death, from Nazism and genocide to disasters due to human innovation, the film makes an extremely profound point by saying,
“Perhaps the greatest disaster of all is one that man has created himself.”
This points out the flaws of human intelligence and how humans are one of the leading causes of death, from vehicular accidents to downright stupidity to homicide/genocide. Despite how morbid the scenes throughout the film can be, the movie finishes beautifully actually; leaving it up to the audiences’ interpretation whether death is “the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end” and following it with serene music and footage of a baby’s birth with a compilation of the child being with its mother living happily together.
Faces of Death takes an incredibly pragmatic approach to studying death. It makes one reflect on multiple aspects of life. Death is definitely one of the most unsettling ideas to expose ourselves to but it can be incredibly worthwhile. We all know that one day, we will inevitably succumb to the arms of its embrace, yet we still remain oblivious to when that day will betide despite its inevitability. Being able to understand our perceptions of death can make us less and less afraid of it. After watching this film and reflecting on my own life and my own perception of death, the fears and discomfort of something that is so inevitable have since washed away and I also remain grateful for every waking day.
