Ears, Nose And Throat

Ears, Nose And Throat expertly fulfils the two basic requirements of great documentary: to present an interesting story in an interesting way. As a woman undergoes a medical examination, she recounts a story.

There is a minimalism to this that compels - a stark monochromatic stillness, a commitment to the business of the examination - in the screening that Eye For Film saw the beep test for binaurality appeared appropriately split across the channels, but within the film these routines are chronologically disconnected. We hear and see and hear speech about an act, witnessed, in a measured and metered way.

Kevin Jerome Everson's film is dependent on the testimony, so to speak, of Shadeena Brooks, given space to tell a tale made all the more powerful by the abstraction of circumstance constructed around it.

There's a tendency in experimental cinema to the strobe and tone generation, but here they are a product of the process, not an end of themselves. The distance, the flattened affect of the presentation here contribute to something that unsettles and compels in equal measure.