Whole(2003)(Amputee Wannabes Docu)(DVD)

trep

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E-FilmCritic Review<table border=0 width=90%><tr><td bgcolor=LightSlateGray>Costing an Arm and a Leg
The victims of a growing mental disorder are obsessed with amputation.
By Carl Elliott

Baz remembers first seeing an amputee when he was a 4-year old boy in Liverpool. By the time he was 7 he had begun to think, "This is the way I should be." It was not until Baz was in his 50s, however, that he actually had his leg amputated. Baz froze his leg in dry ice until it was irreversibly damaged, then persuaded a surgeon to complete the job. When he awoke from the anesthetic and his left leg was gone, he says, "All my torment had disappeared."

Whole, a riveting new documentary by Melody Gilbert that recently premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and will soon be shown at festivals in Calgary and London, is about an increasingly visible group of people who call themselves "amputee wannabes." Wannabes desperately wish to have their healthy limbs removed, and some have succeeded in having it done. Kevin, a university lecturer and one of several wannabes featured in the film, had his leg amputated by Robert Smith, a surgeon in Scotland who has amputated the legs of two otherwise healthy people. George Boyer shot his own leg off with a shotgun. Others have used chain saws and homemade guillotines. Why? Nobody really knows, including the wannabes themselves, who often say they have had the desire since they were children. "It's obviously peculiar," admits Kevin. "But knowing it is peculiar and saying it is weird does not do away with the problem."
[...]
Gilbert's sensitive film allows wannabes to speak for themselves. Many are so articulate and likable that no matter how difficult you find it to understand their desire, you will come away from the film with sympathy for their strange predicament. Yet perhaps the most disturbing figures in Whole are the clinicians. Even as the wannabes admit how baffling they find their own desires, the mental health professionals in the film speak with absolute confidence. The film features a social worker and clinical psychologist who have counseled Boyer in Florida, as well as Michael First, an academic psychiatrist at Columbia University, who has organized several meetings of wannabes and clinicians in New York. First says that the purpose of these meetings is to "facilitate treatment" for the condition, by which he says he means surgical treatment. His apparent certainty that nothing short of amputation can help these people is underscored by ominous music and a screen shot that reads, "There are no medications or therapies known to help wannabes."

This claim is not so much false as incomplete. No formal research studies on treatments for wannabes have ever been undertaken. In fact, nobody really knows much about this condition. Only a handful of articles about it have been published, most of them small case studies in obscure medical journals. You might think that clinicians would want to be certain that all options had been exhausted before recommending that patients have their arms or legs amputated, yet the clinicians in the film do not mention alternative treatments. The only person who expresses a hint of uncertainty is Robert Smith (the Scottish surgeon mentioned above); he wonders how the amputations he has performed will be perceived in 20 years.

Dissenting voices of any kind are largely absent from Whole. In her eagerness to document the extraordinary stories her subjects tell (and perhaps to gain their trust), Gilbert has produced a film that uncritically accepts those stories at face value. The patients explain what this condition is and how it should be treated, and the clinicians obediently nod their agreement. The only skeptical voice in the film comes from Jenny, the wife of an American wannabe living in France. When Jenny decides she cannot stay married to a man who wants to cut his own leg off, her husband accuses her of being narrow-minded.
[...]

[ From Slate - Carl Elliott is an interesting chap, you may want to check out this interview too, if you are interested about identity and technology. ]

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<tr><td bgcolor=Black>SPECS:
~401Mb, 00:57:38
video: 320x240, 29.97 fps (pure NTSC), XVID4, 821,5 kbps
sound: MP3, 128kbps, Stereo
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<tr><td bgcolor=LightSlateGray>THE LINK:
Whole (Melody Gilbert 2003 - documentary).avi</tr></td>
<tr><td bgcolor=Black>CAPS:

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d0c · **Posted:** Tue Oct 12, 2004 10:06 pm **Post subject:**

another sicko documentary *click* thanks for this one....

John_Doe · **Posted:** Wed Oct 13, 2004 4:45 am **Post subject:**

oh my!!! This sounds friggin AWESOME! Hope it's as good as 'A Hole in the Head'. =)

John_Doe · **Posted:** Fri Oct 15, 2004 4:24 am **Post subject:**

hmm.. what version of xvid is this? I can only play it with VLC.

d0c · **Posted:** Fri Oct 15, 2004 6:25 am **Post subject:**

i cant play it either...

DxaKrator · **Posted:** Fri Oct 15, 2004 6:45 am **Post subject:**

Lol...ok....now we're on to something here....hehhe....I am grabbing this for sure :beerchug:

trep · **Posted:** Fri Oct 15, 2004 7:34 am **Post subject:**

John_Doe wrote:

hmm.. what version of xvid is this? I can only play it with VLC.

Also on FH some people have problems playing it. I swear it works, I've had positive feedback also by non-linux users... here's what America from FH says:

Quote:

The film decodes just fine with the 3ivx decoder here.

iirc, ffdshow has decoding options for mp42 4cc's ...

...and iirc, you can change the 4cc to divx or xvid to get it to playback with either of those filters (since both are mpeg4 compliant)

I'll report back if I have more news. I don't use Win so I can't check the problem myself.

trep · **Posted:** Fri Jan 21, 2005 9:34 am **Post subject:**

THERE'S AN EASY FIX THAT WILL LET YOU PLAY THIS MOVIE ON WINDOWS FLAWLESSY.

Please go HERE to learn about it.

Le Frog · **Posted:** Thu Mar 23, 2006 5:50 pm **Post subject:**

Thanx...

grzEGOrz · **Posted:** Tue Apr 25, 2006 12:59 pm **Post subject:**

wow! again nice thing to look at. too bad it wasn't released when i was writing my MA about body modifications.

DxaKrator · **Posted:** Wed Apr 26, 2006 1:24 am **Post subject:**

This movie is a great comedy :mrgreen:

grzEGOrz · **Posted:** Wed Apr 26, 2006 1:49 am **Post subject:**

don't make fun of these people!! we're all different, y'know :wink:

btw, only two people are sharing it? damn!!!

DxaKrator · **Posted:** Wed Apr 26, 2006 3:27 am **Post subject:**

Who's making fun?I only stated a fact..I laughed me ass off at the movie.Don't cut me off at the knees just cause I like a good comedy :mrgreen:

grzEGOrz · **Posted:** Wed Apr 26, 2006 8:53 am **Post subject:**

nah, me think that cutting ya at the elbows would be better - how would you keep postin' here? :mrgreen:

DxaKrator · **Posted:** Wed May 03, 2006 7:59 am **Post subject:**

I could still use one appendage :wink:

Whole(2003)(Amputee Wannabes Docu)(DVD)

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