"Benoot's starting point is the kidney stone that has just been removed from her body, an intriguingly smooth and worn pebble; it's a personal event she assigns to her offscreen alter ego, voiced by Phillips. This quasi-fictional narrator musingly notes that once upon a time she provided the voice for nature documentaries; quite true, Phillips has indeed narrated some nature documentaries, which appears to be the reason why Benoot cast her."
"Phillips/Benoot ranges far afield, talking to ecologists and geologists all over the world about the nature of stone and kidney stones in particular, which contain the mineral weddellite, so named as it is found at the bottom of the Weddell Sea off Antarctica. How on earth did an Antarctic mineral end up in my body? she wonders. She talks to people on the island of Fogo, Cape Verde,"
Belgian filmmaker Sofie Benoot uses a removed kidney stone as the starting point for a whimsical essay documentary voiced by Sian Phillips. The film connects personal bodily material to global geology, tracing the kidney stone's mineral weddellite to the Weddell Sea in Antarctica. The narrative travels to Fogo, Cape Verde, Palestinian stonemasons, and experts in California and the UK, including forensic soil specialist Professor Lorna Dawson. The film meditates on geological time, portraying stone as violently churned and as a recorder of human history that may also suggest deep futures. The tone remains elegant, humorous and quietly inquisitive.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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