Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist
Rating: ***1/2 out of *****
By Fernando Vallejo
Starring Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose. Interviews by Kathe Burkhart, Kirby Dick and Rita Valencia. Produced and directed by Kirby Dick. Running Time: 90 mins. This film is not rated.
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The central themes of "Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist" are pain and love, and its subsequent effect on a person's life. Its protagonist, Bob Flanagan, who died at the age of 52, suffered from cystic fibrosis, a mortal disease which debilitates the lungs by saturating them with thick coats of mucus, preventing him from normal breathing.
The movie is about much more than recouperating ( or attempting to ) from this disease.
An audacious, fabulously triumphant docudrama, "Sick" chronicles the life of Flanagan and his vicious, unthinkable acts of sadomasochism conducted with his mistress of 15 years, Sheree Rose, who amazingly provided much of the footage for the film.
Flanagan's idelogy crosses the realms of rebelliousness and becomes transcendental, similar to Terry Zwigoff's brilliant 1994 "Crumb", which also explored the dysfunction of an artist by painting not a sympathetic portrait, but a realistic one. Both Crumb and Flanagan revelled in their defects. But Flanagan was not only a man content on enduring the pain via lungs, he inflicted acts of pain on himself at a very young age, courageously defying God ( he was an Irish Catholic ) and turning his body into a work of art, which he unraveled in museums and lectures.
Behold these works of physical art. Among them is a metal ball inserted inside his anus, and, --the most disturbing scene of the decade--, nailing his penis to a board.
Flanagan was a man of great intelligence, wit and humor, as well as adopting a sense of candidness scarcely seen in modern filmmaking. Not only did he approach his disease with humor, peforming burlesque acts in front of an audience, he was also revitalized by his approachment. Most with cystic fibrosis do not make it past their earlier twenties ( there's also a subplot involving a female devotee who knew death was awaiting her. )
But the most outstanding thing about "Sick" is Flanagan's relationship with Sheree. Brimming with honesty, sensual stimulation and unapologetically sad moments of pain, their powerful bond lifts "Sick" into a rare cinematic high, where we forget we are in an auditorium and become a part of these people.
The last scene, where we see the hero murmuring the last words to his wife in a hospital bed, as he struggles for his last moments of life, is raw, tender, hideous. It goes a step beyond cinematic intimacy.
(C) 1997 Fernando Vallejo
IcyFascist@aol.com
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