Human body as spectacle has been around for centuries. With the advent of carnival freak shows, the everyday member of the public was provided an avenue to ogle bodies different from their own in a way that was, somehow, socially acceptable exploitation. There is, however, some grey area. There’s a part of us all that strives for attention and connection with others, after all. A piece of us that wants to be the center of attention, perceived only at our peak forms.
There are occupations and pursuits people dedicate their lives to where they voluntarily push their bodies to the extreme and put the results on display, so they can be willingly rated and judged on their appearance, forever in search of some optimal level of “Perfect” that hardly exists. Body building is at the heart of writer/director Grazia Tricarico’s BODY ODYSSEY, a weird—and weirdly beautiful—tale of obsession and objectification that just played at 2024’s Fantastic Fest.
Written with Marco Morana and Giulio Rizzo, Tricarico’s BODY ODYSSEY follows Mona (Jaqueline Fuchs), a female bodybuilder trying, with the help of her coach Kurt (Julian Sands, in one of his last roles), to perfect her form and figure so that she can compete in and win the Miss Body Universe competition. While following her regimen during a stay at a hotel, she encounters a young man, Nic (Adam Mišík), with whom she has a charged moment and becomes obsessed.
While for Mona her romanticism of Nic and their encounter is a core and pivotal moment of clarity that shakes her focus and resolve on the competition and opens her mind to other ideas of perfection and fulfillment, for everyone else it is the spectacle of Mona herself that is all-consuming. Kurt becomes obsessed with honing her body—regardless of any input Mona herself might have or the dangers they might see playing out in others. He says it is so they have the best chance of winning the competition, but it feels deeper than that.
At various instances, Mona has men calling her a “marvel”, begging for her to do nude shoots so they might better “study” her form, and generally trying to exert their ideas of control and what is best for her as loudly and often as possible over the sound of her own protestations. Some of these, mostly from people with whom she has few or chance encounters, she brushes off entirely, firm in her resolve that her body and image are her own, to be shaped by nothing more than her own hands, mind, and willpower. She maintains regular care of herself and demands to stick to the steroid regimen with which she is already familiar.
She fights, in her own way, for what she wants—even when what she wants does not want her back—and in a twisted way she is still crushed, for all her strength and muscle, under the weight of the men around her.
BODY ODYSSEY is at times confused, introducing threads and elements to explain parts of Mona that may well have been better left to stand on their own, yet it is also and often a visually fascinating piece of work. The sound design, too, works hand in hand with Corrado Serri’s cinematography to take us on a visceral journey through consumption and objectification that begins on Mona’s terms and ends somewhere in a land of unreality.
It is body and horror mixed together in a way that both is and isn’t body horror as we think of it. It is body horror as commodity. Body and the horror of spectacle when the spectacle slips from your control. Obsession in ways large and small converging to unveil a tale of the surreal through the lens of an occupation that seems hardly real itself.
Tags: Adam Misik, Body Horror, Body Odyssey, Bodybuilding, Corrado Serri, Fantastic Fest, Fantastic Fest 2024, Film Festivals, Giulio Rizzo, Grazia Tricarico, Jaqueline Fuchs, Julian Sands, Marco Morana
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