Watching Painlevé’s dog surgery film was a lot harder than I thought

A tough watch from 1926

So, I finally sat down with Jean Painlevé’s Experimental Treatment of a Hemorrhage in a Dog. Honestly? You should only watch this if you have a very strong stomach or a deep obsession with the history of medicine. If you are a dog lover who can't stand seeing animals in even a clinical setting, please, just look away now. 💉

It is not 'entertainment' in any sense of the word. It is a document. A cold, flickering, grainy record of what passed for cutting-edge science back in the twenties.

The film is incredibly short, but it feels much longer while you are in it. The silence is the first thing that hits you. There is no music to tell you how to feel, which makes the whole thing feel weirdly naked.

Most movies from this time, like Michael, use light and shadow to create a mood. Here, the light is just there to show the doctors what they are doing. It is harsh and unforgiving.

The dog is just... there. It is lying on the table, and the camera focuses entirely on the surgical site. You see the hands of the doctors, and they move with this brisk, business-like energy that I found a bit chilling.

I kept thinking about how these tools look like something you’d find in a dusty antique shop now. They look heavy and unrefined. There is a moment where a clamp is applied, and the film grain is so thick it almost looks like it's raining inside the room. 🌧️

Painlevé is famous for making science look like art, especially with his later stuff about seahorses. But this doesn't feel like art yet. It feels like a notebook entry that someone accidentally turned into a movie.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Experimental Treatment of a Hemorrhage in a Dog (1930) through its definitive frames.

I noticed a small detail that stuck with me. One of the assistants has these very shaky hands for a split second. It made the whole thing feel human and terrifying at the same time. It’s not like the polished, perfect surgeries you see on TV now.

The blood on the old film stock looks like black ink. It pools in a way that makes the whole scene look like a Gothic horror sketch. If you’ve seen something like Strange Cargo, you know how old film can make even mundane things look a bit spooky, but this is on another level.

Why do we even watch these things? I guess it's the curiosity of seeing how we used to think. The detachment in the film is what gets me. There is no 'character' here, just a biological problem being solved with metal and thread.

I found myself wondering what the room smelled like. Probably tobacco and ether. It’s a very different vibe from a narrative movie like The Power of Evil where everything is staged for the eye. This was staged for the result.

The film just stops. There is no conclusion or summary. It just cuts to black, leaving you sitting there in the dark. It’s very jarring.

I think I needed to go watch a comedy immediately after. Maybe something light like Henpecked just to get the images out of my head. It’s a fascinating piece of history, but I can’t say I 'liked' it. 🐾

Random notes from my notebook:

• The way the fur is shaved back is strangely precise.
• The flicker of the light is actually quite distracting after two minutes.
• No one in the film seems to be wearing gloves? Or maybe they are just very thin?
• The silence makes you hear every little noise in your own house.

If you are looking for a plot, go find Fighting Bill. This is strictly for the people who want to see the raw reality of 1920s science. It’s a hard pill to swallow.

I don't think I'll ever watch it again, but I'm glad I saw it once. It makes you appreciate modern medicine, that's for sure. And maybe it makes you appreciate the kindness we have now that seemed missing back then.