Crush

Crush is the story of a man who wants to turn into an animal as told by the man himself, and one or two observers. He employs a variety of techniques to transform himself into a beast, including cutting off parts of his body, exercising, swimming; he wants to return to the water, to speed up evolution a little. Has he gone mad, or is he just tired of being human? As the narrator descends into private obsessions, we begin to perceive the distorted outlines of reason which guide his descent. The trajectory he defines allows us to reflect upon the correlations between the body and identity, our culture's obsession with the body beautiful, and what it means to be human.

This title is also available on Nelson Henricks Videoworks: Volume 2.