Make Me Young (2010/Cinema Libre DVD)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: B- Documentary: B
How wild has the world of plastic surgery and obsession
with staying young become? I would say
unreasonable, but Mitch McCabe’s Make Me
Young (2010) places the daughter of a plastic surgeon long gone whose world
affected her ideas about staying young.
Though she previously just bought face creams and the like, the ideas of
everything from drastic surgery to new electric techniques to the ill-advised
world of botox are explored as she interviews many people who use all kinds of
techniques to stay young.
Are any of these people happy? Are they addicted? Are they insane to go to these lengths to
change their appearance? Is it part of a
new phase of a dysfunctional, ugly, sad living that shows how gutted out our
society has become? McCabe does a good
job of exploring all this while opening up about her life and cautiously
getting into the lives of others (some of whom she knows) about their
motivations and how the unrecognized culture of looksism and the resulting
prejudice (along with massive advertising) have made all this a multi-billion
dollar industry.
Originally seen on HBO, this is the uncut version of the
program and is very much worth going out of your way for.
The 1.33 X 1 image is shot on analog videotape, with
stills and older 16mm and 8mm film edited in.
There are some aliasing errors and some softness, but it is ultimately
minor and this does not look bad. The
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is mostly newly recorded audio, though I was surprised
that older audio shot during filming existed and held up as well as it
did. Extras include Deleted Scenes,
feature length audio commentary by McCabe, Extended Interviews that did not
make the final cut and a behind-the-scenes featurette called Revealed!
- Nicholas Sheffo
