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Released by: Camera Obscura
Released on: 1/2/2009
Director: Tsurisaki Kiyotaka
Cast: Froilan Orozco
Year: 2001
The Movie:
Documented between 1996 and 2001 by pinku eiga director/professional corpse photographer Tsurisaki Kiyotaka, Orozco The Embalmer is a unflinching ninety minute documentary that explores the work of former police inspector turned embalmer, Froilan Orozco. A middle aged man suffering from some health problems, Orozco claims to have embalmed thousands of bodies, an average of five per day going under his knife. Based in El Cartucho, a small part of Bogota, Columbia which is rampant with violent crime and drug abuse, Orozco works at a small, run down funeral home right across the road from the local medical center, he's never in need of work and seems to have a constant stream of corpses to deal with.
There isn't really a plot to discuss, the film is a simple collection of vignettes showing Orozco at work with some clips spliced in that show what the neighborhood he works in is like. Tsurisaki's camera, unsurprisingly, leaves nothing to the imagination and none of what you see in this documentary is faked. Corpses are cut open quickly, their innards removed, their torsos cleaned out and chemically treated. At one point a face is pulled back from the skull and the cranial cavity stuffed with paper to help slow down decomposition. The skin that makes up the face is then pulled back into place, the body is literally tossed into a coffin, make up then applied as some sort of last touch.
As Orozco goes about his work it's easy to see how jaded he is. A man literally surrounded by death, he talks openly and nonchalantly to anyone who comes into his embalming room, even going so far as to ask one girl out. This is very much just a job to him, he doesn't really seem to feel much for his victims, though at one point when the corpse of an infant is brought in you can't really tell if he's referring to the deceased child as 'a little shit' because of disdain or out of duress. Orozco goes about his business with almost ruthless efficiency, cutting and cleaning as quickly as a butcher would dress a cow for display in his shop window. As such, he's developed a reputation as one of the best in the business, at least regionally. As the film plays out, we meet his assistant and also some of the competition, all of whom have their own odd personality quirks and traits.
Tsurisaki shoots the film exploitatively, capturing the removed organs in close up and making sure that the deceased subjects genitals are easy to see and sometimes right up front in the shot. The film is quite shocking and bound to upset sensitive viewers, but at the same times it's a very powerful picture. It's as much a personality piece, if not more, than it is a collection of corpse footage but there's little doubt that the film will be remembered as a character study before it'll be remembered for its shock value. Nothing is hidden from the viewer, there are no clever editing tricks here to hide the more unsettling visuals from the lens. The cinematography is as blunt as Orozco's delivery, and while the film, obviously made on a low budget and with limited means, is rough around the edges despite its flaws it offers fascinatingly grim insight into the realities of the death ritual.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Orozco The Embalmer was shot on consumer level video so the 1.33.1 fullframe presentation on this DVD is about as good as it's going to get. The image is clean and clear and detail is as strong as the source material could probably allow for. There aren't any compression artifacts to note nor is there really any tape roll or source related problems.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track on the disc is in Spanish with subtitles offered up in English and in German. There isn't really any channel separation to note and there are spots where the dialogue is a bit muffled or drowned out by background noise but this appears to be the way that the sound was recorded rather than anything to do with the disc itself.
There are two key extra features on this disc, the first of which is a featurette simply titled Statement By The Director (8:06) in which Tsurisaki Kiyotaka speaks about how he wound up in Columbia and sought out the most dangerous place in the city to shoot this feature. He talks about the junkies and criminals that were in the area and how he wound up meeting with Orozco. He then explains his thoughts on embalming and on Orozco himself and why he wanted to document him. Tsurisaki speaks in English and his thick accent can be a little tricky to understand sometimes, but he proves himself an intelligent and thoughtful man and expresses himself quite well here.
The second featurette is called the ArteTracks Featurette (4:32) and it appears to be a French television piece discussing Tsurisaki Kiyotaka's career as a 'corpse photographer.' Tsurisaki discusses his photography and the segment is quick to point out that he's also directed “S&M porn†as Scott H. Biram's 'Blood, Sweat & Murder' plays on the soundtrack. From there the piece covers Orozco The Embalmer, before finishing up with some footage of one of his photography exhibitions. This piece is narrated in French but subtitled in English and German.
Rounding out the extras are an un-subtitled Japanese language trailer for the film (2:21), a still gallery of over one hundred examples of Tsurisaki's photography, menus (available in German or in English), and chapter selection. An insert booklet inside the keepcase contains a German language essay on the film by Marcus Stiglegger.
The Final Word:
It takes a strong constitution and a morbid curiosity to appreciate this very blunt documentary that pulls no punches in its depiction of its subject matter. Camera Obscure has treated the movie with respect and given it an impressive presentation that offers up some important contextual extra features as well.