“Flesh Out” Review
This article was originally published online in Columbia Undergraduate Film Productions Entertainment in May 2019.
Flesh Out, originally titled ll Corpo della Sposa, was released in February but had screenings during the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. The Italian film was directed by Michela Occhipinti and takes place in Mauritania. Following the life of a young woman named Verida (Verida Beitta Ahmed Deiche) as she undergoes the process called gavage, Occhipinti sensitively and beautifully confronts the effects of patriarchal beauty standards on women’s health. As Verida juggles her future, her desires, and her relationships, she must come face to face with her motivations and her feelings on gavage and herself.
Gavage, for context, is the process of forcing a young woman to eat in order to gain weight since having a larger figure is considered to be extremely beautiful in Mauritania. The English-language title adds an increased focus to this process as a central theme of the work, while the original title translated to English (“The body of the bride”) fully embraces the idea of ownership and who controls a woman’s body. Occhipinti said the following on this topic: “When I first read about gavage I thought it seemed quite crazy, but a second later I realized that it is just the opposite side of the mirror. I hope that even one single girl gets out of the film thinking that if models change so much from country to country, and here I have to be thin but somewhere else girls have to be full, these standards cancel each other out, they actually do not exist anymore.”
The director herself has lived around the world, including Morocco, Hong Kong, and Congo, which perhaps informs her adeptness at avoiding the typical Western judgment in discussing these topics. It is easy to see a process like gavage and dismiss it on the surface level because most European and American beauty standards emphasize thinness. Occhipinti digs deeper, making it clear that what is troubling about this process is the fact that it is rooted in a man’s desire. One of the comments that the family of Verida’s betrothed makes about her is that she is too thin, which upsets her greatly. Her desire to gain weight is fueled by her want of acceptance in the gaze of a man she barely knows, as well as her mother’s pressures.
But that does not mean that she is weak, or helpless, and, in fact, the women in this film are portrayed as strong and powerful in their own rights. Verida has two friends: Amal (Amal Saad Bouh Oumar) and Aminetou (Aminetou Souleimane). Together they navigate life, discussing things such as beauty, a modeling competition, Amal’s wish to study in Cairo, and Aminetou’s wish to go to France. Amal wants to have lighter skin, which Verida chastises her for. Amal tells Verida that she will stop buying lightening creams when Verida stops undergoing gavage; however, her mother insists that she continue. Verida’s mother is the most constant presence in her life besides her sister, as she lovingly makes each meal for her, waking up at odd hours to do so. Even as she forces her to undergo gavage, she shows kindness in the way in which she trusts Verida to eat her meals and shares stories of her childhood. Verida also has a job at her grandmother’s beauty parlor, who similarly bonds with her over the customs that they had when she was preparing for marriage. Verida even pursues a date with a man named Sidi (Sidi Mohamed Chinghaly) even though she knows she must marry who she is betrothed to.
The ending is left ambiguously precise. Verida has given away her most cherished belonging to Amal, and her reflection poetically fades from view. Without telling us anything, Occhipinti has told us all, but for such a strong film centering out Verida and her choices or lack thereof, this lack of a definite end was a slight disappointment. To see Verida make a real, final choice would have been fantastic in its own right. Still, Occhipinti must be praised for the tasteful way in which she treated this subject and a culture that was not her own. Flesh Out centered on the effect of gavage on a young woman’s life, but it left viewers with a poignant sense of self-appraisal as to how we allow beauty ideals to affect our health.