Vilnius review: Delicate Matter (2024)
Kino Pavasaris
National Short Film Competition
“My wife wants to make sure that I don’t Hannibal Lecter-ize,” says Dainius Haroldas Pauža, the professor of anatomy at the University of Kaunas, during his Zoom call with the movie’s director, Milda Augustaitytè. He explains that she got him involved in all sorts of cultural events to help him stay sharp and avoid becoming a typical anatomist who does just that. We are introduced to a man who encounters death every workday, vivisecting and studying bodies together with the generation of doctors and anatomists in the making. Unlike many of his students, the expert looks undisturbed by the pungent smell and the state of some of the bodies. Is he that immune to such sight? “Of course not, ” shrugs Pauža, explaining that whatever happens in the room belongs to the job, like sharpening the brain knife. But even for that, one needs to know how sharp the blade should be by considering the nature of the tissue that needs to be cut.
Forensic science has become popular after the great success of one of the longest-running TV shows of this century. “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, that aired for the first time on CBS on 6 October 2000 (starring William Petersen, Marg Helgenberger, Gary Dourdan, and Jorja Fox, among others) marked the beginning of an obsession with examination of dead bodies in frightening detail. Two decades later, we are observing the increasing popularity of true crime documentaries in which diverse experts reveal their trade secrets.
Fortunately, neither Augustaitytè nor her cinematographer, Martin Agafonov, expose us to the horrors of body slicing in this small documentary about a man whose life is tightly connected to the dead. Very few scenes show lifeless human flesh or bones in Delicate Matter. The camera is drawn to the focused faces of anatomy students who are exploring the secrets of the human body and the instructions given to them by the professor who believes that the scientists’ work should be more exposed to the public. The filmmaker tries to reach the person behind the scientist, and she does it to an extent.
Crafting a good documentary takes more than a fascinating subject, and Delicate Matter struggles with structure. This is mostly related to the editing decisions and a strange absence of explanation about who is the man who inspired the whole film. His name appears on the screen very briefly, and only by entering his full name, as spotted in the movie’s closing credits in the Google search machine, there was the complete information about a man who is the Director of the Institute of Anatomy of the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (since 2004), and whose most important areas of scientific work are neuromorphology, histochemistry of the autonomic nervous system, and nervous regulation of the heart. Professor Dainius Haroldas Pauža is a member of the American Association of Anatomists and the German Society of Anatomists. The former Chairman of the Lithuanian Society of Morphologists and a member of the Lithuanian Science Council (and its Chairman 2013–2015) published about 50 scientific and popular science articles.
Original Title: Subtilus Reikalas
Country: Lithuania
Language: Lithuanian, English
Year: 2024
Runtime: 23′
Production: National Film School ( K I MO )
Producer: Marija Kazlauskaite
Written|Directed by: Milda Augustaitytè
