The times are over when people dress themselves up, put some makeup on, add perfume and, of course, choose the right costume to get respect and appreciation from their surroundings. Today the competition is much harder and people are preparing to confront worldwide public evaluation. We have already seen a series of fictional films showing people of all ages, especially youngsters, attracting attention, performing unimaginable acts, including perverse murders, in order to get the «views» and «likes».
To again give voice to this subject in a documentary seems an urgent task and the audience of Nyon´s 2020 online version Festival Visions du Réel recognised this effort with the public award for Sacha Schöberl´s Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.
«What god owes you»
After the drone perspective opening scene, we see an already beautiful slim woman entering a building with the banner: «Dr. Han gives you what God owes you». She is filming herself with two online applications simultaneously, disappointed for having only 15 followers at this very moment. Some of her regular viewers have teased her about her small breasts, so she has decided to change them. Dr. Han promises her to have so many followers in the future, that she will not need to work anymore. The deal is that she can screen her breast enhancement live, a world premiere, holding her camera on her face during the procedure, making victory signs, while the hospital crew screens other parts of her body. Also, a real public space behind a glass wall can allow people to follow it. Finally, though, during the procedure, she gets so tired that even the assisting nurse advised her to take a rest and sleep.
Dr. Han had taken care that no anaesthesia materials are to appear in the picture. After having arranged his facial hair removal, one of his staff members takes photos of him and the client using a digital beauty filter. Evidently, he is not only making publicity for the most expensive aesthetic chirurgic clinic but is addicted to the views to, at least, the same degree as his clients, not hesitating to step on the operation table for another photo.
Using testimonies about miscarried operations in other clinics, which have caused partial face paralyses or broken noses, followed by the need for permanent medication or even acts of self-harm, this warning serves to make clear that the prices of his service are worthwhile.
Missing self-estimations
Dr. Han is a perfectionist, demanding of himself and his surrounding team an endless effort. Unpleasantries about failures in daily life even enter his dreams. Sacha Schöberl opens the view behind the coulisse of the perfect clinic ambiance into the personal life of Dr. Han and his proximate, starting with his mother, a businesswoman, who has never given him recognition. He is always forcing himself to get better because being an online celebrity is part of the necessities. Consequently, even during his world premiere operation, he is monitoring his online performance, disappointed in getting more clicks, but not so many new followers.
Dr. Han had been an introverted child with divorced parents, so he quickly developed a pioneer mentality, always risking being different. His daughter, who misses real contact with him, at least estimates this aspect of his life. Her father demands her to perform a kinesiatric exercise and the right nutrition for body posture and weight loss. He takes time to practice with her but she often feels to not be good enough, an impressive example for the return of the equal, transmitted from generation to generation. Only when in front of the camera does he confess his high estimation for his daughter: «She is beautiful, she is smart, and her character is better than mine, I think she can do better than me.»
«Dr. Han gives you what God owes you».
Back to the stage and we see a client with an imbecilic devotion in front of Dr. Han. But even she, after the operation, is aware of the dangerous temptation to acquire more and more beauty procedures, as Dr. Han has also changed feeling his life recently more fulfilled, not least by getting closer to his daughter with more time for conversations. He got, in his words,
«an extension».
Schöberl has solicited a significant documentary about the ambiguities of self-realisation and self-perception, which too often is just influenced and even determined by the perception of others. Giving a face to those, who are victims of a doubtful self-construction and, at the same time, are part of a growing industry that transform missing self-estimations into a profit, is what we can call an orientation work.
