"BODY ODYSSEY" (2023) Artfully Combines Grounded Body Horror And Bodybuilding (REVIEW)
Our collective obsession with our bodies and appearance can be as liberating as it is detrimental. While some believe that “bio-hacking” and optimizing our bodies is a matter of reaching some sort of peak of performance or existence, others believe that life is to be enjoyed and the body is not so much a temple, but a vehicle for our existence. There is no objectively right way to live, as every body and person is different, but that hasn’t stopped a slew of industries like fitness and fashion from capitalizing on real and exaggerated fears of declining health. To be sure, there are good habits that can lead to a longer and healthier life, but that depends on the kind of outcome one is trying to achieve. For some professional bodybuilders, there is no end, but rather the continued process of fine-tuning through both natural and performance-enhancing paths and that’s the subject of Grazia Tircarico’s “Body Odyssey.” Making its North American debut on IndiePix Unlimited’s streaming service today, is this odyssey one worth venturing into?
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Mona is a female bodybuilder obsessed with an ideal of perfection and beauty. The body is her inseparable container, her most faithful ally, her partner responding to laments. Together they find themselves on the threshold of their destiny.
HOW IS IT?
“Body Odyssey” is the purest form of “body horror” you’re likely to ever see, and it’s not because of gross-out mutations or excessive gore, but it examines our insecurities as a festering rot inside of us. In this case, the focus is Mona (Jacqueline Fuchs), a bodybuilder who has one last shot at claiming the illustrious title of Miss Body Universe. With her is the rigid and ruthless trainer, Kurt (Julian Sands in one of his last roles) who will do whatever it takes so they can achieve this accolade. Through lush cinematography and disorienting sound design, Grazia Ticarico weaves a fascinating and bittersweet story about what it means to have, and not have agency concerning one’s body.
Our main character is Mona, but you can’t observe Mona without seeing Kurt somewhere nearby. The two are inseparable, but not romantically as Kurt dominates almost every aspect of Mona’s life from her health, exercise, nourishment, and even her sex life. This is despite her continued claims even from the start of the film that she is “in control” of her body when what we see is someone whose only “control” of their body is what clothes they put on each day. Kurt is overbearing and manipulative as he makes Mona watch him eat a chocolate gateau while she is trying to cut weight, or his displeasure with a young man in a Turkish Bath, Nick (Adam Misík) who pleasures himself to Mona and she obliges. “Body Odyssey” is a movie about bodybuilding, but it is the antithesis of something like the 1977 documentary, “Pumping Iron” in that it doesn’t so much celebrate the world of bodybuilding as it does make clear that this kind of lifestyle is about restriction for the sake of attaining an idea of perfection that is a constantly moving target. Ticarico places no judgment on Mona or her bodybuilding peers so much as she highlights the realities of a very niche and expensive culture of aging bodybuilders. It forces the viewer to immerse themselves in the literal bodies of these folks in a way that shows off the beauty and pain that this kind of lifestyle is akin to. The body horror here isn’t about the body turning against you, but perhaps us turning against our bodies. Over-engineering them to such an extent that it affects our livelihood, as it does with Mona and her descent into an utterly dangerous delusion that goes full tilt when she is rejected by someone embarrassed and ashamed by their attraction to her.
Aside from the quiet intensity of the narrative, the cinematography from Corrado Serri is haunting and beautiful with a wonderful use of light to create a brutalist and clinical look for the film. The scenes underwater are some of the standouts as we get some intimate looks at plants and animals living in the lake in Mona’s backyard. Not to be underscored, the sound design and score from Lorenzo Tomio is reminiscent of “Titane” with its use of industrial and harmonic electronic sounds and then sharp pivots to almost ear-bursting levels of feedback and static to go along with Mona’s deteriorating body and mind. It’s fitting that a film about the body elicits such a physical reaction from the viewer through the use of the audio and the visual, and while the slow-burn and patient style of the film may deter some fidgety watchers the pacing never drags or becomes uninteresting. In many ways the viewer is Mona and we experience her struggle and her success, but we see it from the safe distance of our seats rather than walking in her shoes. “Body Odyssey” forces us to confront the body in a way that we are often quick to judge, and this is perfectly captured when a competition, that refers to the competitors being “old, but gold” one of them passes out during their exhibition and Kurt remarks that he should’ve prepped with cardio and not lifting. It asks us as the viewers to either acknowledge our humanity by seeing the sadness in a body being pushed to its literal limit for the sake of competition or agree with Kurt that this is a byproduct of one’s own doing. The layers here are many and dense, but also beautiful in their unflinching look at another kind of body dysmorphia.
LAST RITES
“Body Odyssey” is a grounded look at a woman’s journey and the cost of trying to attain the pinnacle of bodybuilding fame and presents body horror in a way that uses nothing that isn’t based on our current reality. It presents morally ambiguous and challenging questions about body autonomy, fitness culture, and the toxicity of positivity porn and is one of the most unique films you’re likely to see this year.
THE GORY DETAILS
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Written By
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Where can you watch it?
“Body Odyssey” is making its North American debut on IndiePix Unlimted on February 28, 2025!
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