ERRORS OF THE HUMAN BODY - MIFF 2012

There is nothing more frustrating than a terrible late night film because the awareness of time wasted suddenly seems that much worse.  Sadly “Errors Of The Human Body” was a prime example of this, it was as dull as dishwater.

“Errors Of The Human Body” is I suppose what you could call a medical thriller and is about Geoff, a scientist, who is struggling to cope with the loss of his infant son to a rare and new disease.  His son’s death was the catalyst for Geoff to devote his life to the disease and finding a cure for it.  He receives an invitation to Germany to present his current findings about the disease to students and doctors at a research laboratory.  He accepts the invitations and when he gets there he meets Rebekka, a woman he once had an affair with, who is also working on Geoff’s son’s disease.  While in Germany, Geoff finds it very difficult constantly being reminded of his son and he also learns that his ex-wife has just fallen pregnant again.  To make matters worse, he believes that one of the scientists at the lab is working on a personal and secretive project taking genetic research into the morally gray.  When he investigates what Jarek is up to, it becomes much more dangerous than he could have anticipated.

To tell the truth the synopsis above may be a little off because I have already forgotten a lot of details about this film.  The film is unimaginatively directed by Melbourne born Eron Sheean, who also co-wrote “The Divide” for Xavier Gens (which is a film I very much liked), with almost the whole thing being an unimpressive mess.  Sheean’s storytelling abilities I felt were very poor because I could never work out what was really going on in this film.  I am still unsure exactly what he was working on with Rebekka and what her deal was the entire story.  Visually the film was again dull, flat and lifeless.  It was actually ugly to look at. 

 

The big surprise to me was Michael Eklund’s performance as Geoff.  Eklund also starred in “The Divide” and I thought he was the best thing about it.  In that film he gave himself over body and soul and really gave a truth to his character’s madness.  With “Errors Of The Human Body” he is so boring, almost as though he is sleepwalking through the role and he just did the film for the paycheck.  His performance was so flat and one note that I couldn’t believe I was watching the same guy from “The Divide”.  The only time when Eklund seems interested in the film is late when his performance has to become a little more physical and he appears to give more in these scenes.  This is a man who has lost his child and his wife as a result of that pain, we should feel something for this poor guy, but I felt nothing.

In regards to the other performances they are all terrible (with maybe the exception of Rik Mayall), but they suffer the problem of being German and having to speak English, it never sounds convincing.  Karoline Herfurth plays Rebekka and even though she isn’t great in the role I still have a soft spot for her due to her performance in “Perfume” (and she is also in the new Brian De Palma flick, “Passion”).

Overall, there was little I liked about “Errors Of The Human Body”.  With the exception of some final reel Cronenberg-like images it was an incredible bore, and sadly I remember little from it.  Although the film was terrible what made it worse was before the screening the cinema lost its right sound channel and was not able to have it fixed in time, so the whole film was like listening to it in a metal can.

1.5 Stars.