Press review Caring for your Carcass - Johanne Chagnon

Press review
Caring for your Carcass

Art doesn’t only mean to make you happy; art can rattle your conscience also. Caring for Your
Caracas is the perfect example of this thought. The film is visual-heavy. There is no dialogue in
the film, only a few texts to support the ideas. You may find some images disturbing but that’s
the essence of the film. Rather than call it a film, it should be termed as a video essay. It deals
with the idea of what the creator thinks about nature. Avant-Garde because of its style and idea.

This film is for those who want to see something different. The film will certainly shake you a
bit. The content of the film doesn’t fall under the norm that we usually see in the film.

The unpredictability in storytelling with bold visuals makes it a much watch for everyone. If you’re
someone who likes to watch something out-of-the-box then this film is certainly for you. You
can easily find out from the title that the film talks about the underground culture. The film deals
with issues that we never talk about. It raises questions about the idea that what we perceive as
good or bad.

This unique film is written, directed, and acted by Johanne Chagnon. Through this film, she
wanted to address the subject of inequality. She used the carcasses as a metaphor to deal with
the subject of inequality. The film had shot inside a studio. She has splendidly created the fictional
universe. As a video art, this film expresses the innermost fear of the director. Johanne Chagnon
has over 30 years of experience in being part of a diversified artistic practice. It is quite an
audacious attempt for her to include carcasses in the film.

The film is like a collection of different short performances. All of the performances are part of the
poetic collection. The themes of the performances are related to death, injury, decomposition, and
desolation. The most interesting part of the film is how she has portrayed the rituals of mourning.
The way the color red has been used in this film is quite intriguing. She used the color red on the
body of the carcasses but yet the look soothing.

Minute gestures make the film complete. Those who are new to the idea of video art will surely
enjoy this avant-garde, provocative film.

The film talks about the cruel yet sensitive symbols of the universe. The carcasses that she has
used in the film are dead birds, rotting seals, crustacean caption, and some strange objects. With
these, she created a world that very few actually can see. It’s like dealing with someone’s darkest
fears and desires. You may dislike the film, but you can’t ignore it. It will certainly reach the
core of your heart. In an interview, she said that she wanted to reach the heart of the people and
make them react. She also said that she wants to transmit her worldview to the viewers of her
work.

I would like to give 4.5 stars out of 5 to this video art. As I said earlier, this is a very provocative
and soul-shaking work. The way she has used materials and engaged in unique creative processes
is unprecedented. The way she blended the video graphic and textual elements- makes the film
look fresh in terms of ideas. She just didn’t portray them on the screen but also helped them to
emerge. One more thing that caught my attention is the use of technology. The poetic elements
somehow bind the film. The film stands out because of the bravery in storytelling in a complex
and crumbling world.

https://www.hlc-cultcritic.com/caring-for-your-caracas-an-avant-garde-take-on-subversion-by-
johanne-chagnon/

The last time we encountered a film from Canada based artist Johanne Chagnon, the disjointed
and uncanny Promenade en forêt admittedly tapped into some deep, primal fears – but its
slapdash construction meant it did not hold up to closer inspection. Well, Chagnon is back, and
exhibiting an admirable brand of stubbornness with Caring for Your Carcass – an unnerving
and equally disjointed effort addressing life, death, and the cruelty humanity often inflicts upon
nature.

What is clear about this film is that Chagnon knows who she is, she knows what she wants to
achieve, and if you don’t like that, then to hell with you. Nay-sayers will take her to task for the
distinctly unfinished feel of her art, but ultimately, she is not someone who will pay such tattle
much mind – and in an industry where many people will bend over backwards to make their
vision more commercially viable at the expense of its soul, that is a venerable characteristic.

Just as was the case before, Caring for Your Carcass is another intentionally off-putting piece
of experimental cinema; deploying both grizzly, gore-soaked imagery and tempestuous sound-
engineering alongside a number of irksome stock sound clips and jarring off-the-shelf visual
effects to both disgust and frustrate the audience. You will walk – or crawl – away from this
experience with a migraine, and to some extent that seems to be the point.

At times, this actually works in the film’s favour. As mentioned, Caring for Your Carcass seems
to take aim at humanity’s often grotesque relationship with animals – something which makes

many of the film’s overt attempts to distress its viewers entirely appropriate. The opening shot
of the apparent smearing of some poor deceased seabird’s guts across the floor sets the tone
for the remaining footage. Chagnon isn’t interested in making friends, or even taking prisoners,
and it is a characteristic which means on some level, you can’t help but love her earnest kind of
filmmaking.

By the end, we have gazed at a similar seabird’s cadaver, half-scorched above an open fire,
yielding a small patch of roasted flesh among its tangled and dishevelled feathers, sending up an
increasingly ‘chefy’ society’s obsession with perfectly cooked flesh. We have also seen Chagnon
grimly spoon the hollowed out remains of a wolf, in a bizarre send-up of the fashion industry’s
enduring love for pelts. And we have witnessed the incineration of another skin to demonstrate
the apocalyptic future this behaviour looks set to lead to.

The film succeeds in being both engaging and repulsive then – which seems to be the right pitch
for the ideas being addressed. We shouldn’t be feeling anything approaching peace or closure
when meditating on the way our consumption-based society treats other living beings as fashion
accessories or fetishized cuisine, any more than we should be feeling safe and content when
contemplating the crimes of Ed Gein or Jeffrey Dahmer.

At the same time, it is hard to tell how much of this is intentional. There is undoubtedly some
attempt being made to disturb us, while we ruminate on the destruction of the natural world for
cheap profit, but the film could be more technically polished and still achieve that. Exemplifying
this is the scene where cascades of plumage descend from the sky to cover Chagnon’s face, as
cacophony of what seems to be gun-fire calls to mind a countryside firing squad taking aim at
helpless ‘game birds’ they have cornered on their vast property. While this is a chilling scene,
it did not need to be underwritten – or indeed undermined – by a scrolling text reminiscent of
the end credits from Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, crawling past to tell us “the black season has
started.”

As with Promenade en forêt, there is also some truly woeful use of green-screen, with clear
digital lines often appearing between the shifting shapes of the foreground and the background of
what appears to be black bin-liners to paper the walls of the space the film takes place in. Again,
this seems rather unnecessary – the most impactful things Chagnon pulls off are done without the
use of such visual trickery, and in this case the post-production effects suite seemingly lifted from
the Soviet production of Lord of the Rings seems an unnecessary and distracting inclusion.

It would surely have been easier to stick with cleaner cuts of organic footage and practical effects
– and it would not undermine the revulsion those visuals have. As it is, once again we have a film
which does not feel as though it belongs together. A rich tapestry of eldritch dread is unfortunately

interwoven with plastic waste and unseemly digital tampering, in a way that means while there is
plenty of meat to this movie, it is accompanied by a substantial lump of gristle to chew on.

While I don’t necessarily know if Chagnon’s films always succeed in imparting a particular
message with their audiences, they will leave viewers changed after. In an almost Lovecraftian
sense, exposure to their very existence means you will crawl away, your perception of life
swirling, fluctuating, oozing, morphing before your mind’s eye. That is a quality to be treasured –
but it is also something which needs to be handled with care. Too much digital interference or too
little attention to detail in terms of prop and set design, and the gift will be squandered, as it has
been to an extent here.

https://indyfilmlibrary.com/2021/04/09/caring-for-your-carcass-2020-3-stars/

BEST DIRECTOR AWARD

PROJECT FEEDBACK

Film

Director

Cinematography

Characters

Production

Craft

JUDGE FEEDBACK
Caring for Your Carcass is a strange film. It happens rarely that the film doesn't speak to me. This
was the case, but I will try to keep all my bias at bay.

This film has many layers coded inside of it. As a viewer it is up to us to decode them. It has elements
of impressionism, naturalism, realism and fantastic elements as well. It combines those elements to
shock the audience with its portrayal and sort of graphic imagery.
At first you think it's about ritual, then you think it has an environmental message and in the end
you might think it's like the old saying “Memento homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris”.
The production design is solid, camerawork is static with usage of “projections”. Green screen
elements are done poorly and are visible. If this was a school exercise it would be passable, but in my
opinion, Johanne Chagnon, bite off more than she could chew.
Acting was interesting with some interesting dance moves.
This film is compelling for people who like artsy films, but for the majority audience I can't say the
same. So marketability of this film is really questionable.
Once I have read an article about art. It stated that art these days wants to be as seditious as it can be
- violence, nudity, triggering imagery. This piece of art that came here is shocking, coded in a way
that's hard to decode. For most people sitting in the theatre won't be cooperative enough to decode
this film.

PIMFF 4/10

Instagram, March 7th 2021

Your film brought us enormous pleasure and exhibits excellence
in artistry and craftsmanship in noteworthy fashions.

New Wave Short Film Festival (email March 2nd 2021)