Orozco el embalsamador

In 1996, Tsurisaki Kiyotaka, one of Japan's most infamous Pinku Eiga filmmaker/ death photographers, ventured into the Rue Morgue neighbourhood of Bogota, which is one of the most dangerous areas of the Colombia's capital. The film is an extremely disturbing look into the poverty-stricken side of the world and its practices in death.

This isn't gore porn or sleaze cinema but an intriguing portrait of a man at work who has been tending the dead for over 50 years. It is a shockumentary, but also an interesting sociological study regarding the acceptance of death.

Tsurisaki Kiyotaka spent 3 years following Orozco, a former police officer who now is an embalmer, with over 50 years of experience as a mortician who passed away during the production of the film. Sadly, the man who embalmed than 50,000 bodies in his entire life, was not embalmed. Nor does his grave exist.

'Orozco the Embalmer' is one of the most unrelentingly grim works in existence, the haunting evocation of the rigor mortis and its cadaverous expression ever made on film. This is an essential watch for the fans of Mondo films, Aroma Planning/ Baroque Studio and Shockumentaries, also those who watched Susumu Saegusa films, Der Weg nach Eden (1995) by Robert-Adrian Pejo, John Alan Schwartz's Faces of Death (1978), A Certain Kind of Death (2003) and Stan Brakhage's The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (1971) will appreciate this unsettling piece of work.

I just watched this movie last night for the first time and wow, what an experience that was.

First off, this is a very well done documentary about an embalmer in the poorest parts of Columbia. The overall sense of filth and grime in this movie make it all that more appealing/appalling for the audience. I learned of this film through the blogs of extreme horror fans but this little gem is on a shelf by itself. There are no depictions of glorified violence, no stunts, no gimmicks, just matter-of-fact filming of what happens in the poorest neighborhoods after you die.

Most people wouldn't be able to handle, let alone like, this film but it is a very real take on life and death. Life is not always a happy ending and we all end up dead one day. Sometimes it's good to face that to appreciate life just a little more.

If you have a good nerve and want to see what happens after you die, check this out. If you have a weak stomach, I'd probably pass this one over.

8/10*

Orozco the Embalmer (2001) 6/10: This documentary offers a gritty and sorrowful look into the life of an embalmer in Colombia, a country fraught with violence. While it's not technically horror, the raw footage of Orozco performing his craft on countless murder victims is deeply unsettling. The film focuses more on the context of death than the embalming itself, highlighting how violence permeates everyday life in a dangerous environment. The relentlessly bleak mood is somewhat undercut by the awkward, grating soundtrack, which feels out of place. As the film draws to a close, Orozco's story ends on a mysterious, unresolved note, making it even more haunting. It leaves viewers contemplating the brutal realities and complex emotional weight Orozco must bear and what the heck happened to him really. While the documentary is thought-provoking, the slow pace and tonal dissonance from the soundtrack might not be for everyone.

Not many movies want me to better my life. This is one of them, just like Mary Poppins. I mean, seeing how easily we become from living to dust and waste makes one really reoent of all the bad things one did in one's life, is it not?? Sure, it is. This is one nature documentary you'll never forget. I mean, some people might argue that it's cold and gruesome, even heartless what we get depictured on the screen, but they just miss the point: life is hard, and the moment this movie gets through your skull it's when you realize life is dying too, and once you're dead there's no coming back... not as this identity anyway. Maybe as a spirit, sure; but not with the same body. Or would we?? If so, we would have zombies like in Night of the Living Dead or some form of Bird Box disease working in it's opposite way; but you shouldn't overmiss the point that life is beauty as is it's ending and then what do we have? The beauty of living. Really, this movie made me very philosophical. Hats off to Orozco the Embalmer.