Modify
Modify, a 2005 documentary directed by Jason Gary and Greg Jacobson now available on DVD, might have been one of the best body modification documentaries I’ve ever seen just for the ability to gather many of the biggest names of the body modification community together for one film. The film had its good points and a few bad, but overall I would definitely recommend this film to any body modification enthusiast.
Throughout the course of the 85 minute documentary, viewers are introduced to Steve Haworth, The Lizardman, Bear, Stalking Cat, Fakir Musafar, Allen Falkner, Masuimi Max, Jesse Jarrell, Jim Ward and some other recognizable faces in the body modification community. However, this film takes a couple of steps outside of the realm of the piercing and tattoo oriented body modification and delves into drag queens, gender reassignment and bodybuilding.
The film begins with a look at what defines body modification, where we’re introduced to the tattoo, piercing and extreme mod aspects as well as the drag queens, transgender and bodybuilding realms. During this early portion of the film, we’re bombarded with graphic footage of plastic surgery procedures that are definitely not for the squeamish.
The film moves on to cover suspensions, featuring CoRE, and bodybuilding followed by a discussion of modification versus mutilation. We also learn about some procedures via Steve Haworth, receive history lessons on Gauntlet and Fakir Musafar, and view more graphic footage, this time detailing gender reassignment surgery.
The creators of this documentary didn’t try to shock viewers through body modifications associated with the piercing and tattoo community, but instead they went for shock via plastic surgery. The footage early in the film covering various forms of plastic surgery and the footage later on covering gender reassignment were extremely graphic and detailed and I have to commend the film on this footage. The gender reassignment footage was accompanied by a surgeon’s narration of what happens during both the m2f and f2m procedures, which was quite interesting. The other plastic surgery footage was just thrown at us during a general commentary on plastic surgery.
As the discussion developed throughout the film, I sensed that we were going to see a lot more than piercings, tattoos, suspensions and split tongues. However, I was disappointed that despite the mentioning of both castration and amputation the film decided not to explore these forms of modification. The film could have been more of a complete spectrum of conservative to extreme, but the minds behind the project seemed to stop short.
The other disappointment I had with this film surrounded the quality of their footage. While the plastic surgery footage was overwhelming, the body modification footage was rather meager. While there was some footage, such as a tongue splitting, suspensions and a self-done bead implant procedure, it was not enough and not as detailed or graphic as the footage supplied for the plastic surgery segments of the documentary.
The interviews with the numerous “body modification celebrities” more than compensated for the lack of graphic footage. While many documentaries have gathered a couple of these well known faces, I cannot think of another film that has put together such an extensive list of big names from the body modification community. Only a handful of people who I thought should have been included were absent, but with those that were present I could not complain.
Again, I can only say that this film was a thumbs-up for its impartial look at people who modify their bodies. While body modification footage outside of the plastic surgery field was lacking and a few of the more extreme forms of body modification were only brief touched upon, this film as a whole is definitely a positive for body modification as the subject of a documentary.
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