Apple Cider Vinegar Review – Kidney Stones Lead to Eccentric Geology | film

TThe elegant, funny and surprising Welsh voice of Sian Phillips defines the central theme of this whimsical documentary essay by Belgian director Sophie Pinot about the nature of rock and stone, and the mysterious interrelationship between our bodies and the Earth’s mass.

Pinot’s starting point is a kidney stone that has just been removed from her body, an interestingly smooth and worn stone; It’s a personal event that she assigns to her off-screen alter ego, voiced by Phillips. This semi-fictional narrator notes that she once provided a voice for nature documentaries; Quite right, Phillips has actually narrated some nature documentaries, which seems to be why Pinot chose her.

Phillips/Binot wanders far and wide, speaking with ecologists and geologists around the world about the nature of stones, kidney stones in particular, which contain the mineral weedelite, so named because it is found at the bottom of the Weddell Sea off Antarctica. “How did Antarctic minerals end up in my body?” She wonders. She speaks to people on Fogo Island, Cape Verde, to construction workers in the Palestinian Territories, and to experts in California and also in the UK, including Professor Lorna Dawson, a specialist in soil forensics whose expertise helps solve crimes.

The film is an occasion for some reflections on the nature of geological time: for those who understand it, the stone is dramatically agitated like a stormy ocean; Our history is written in stone, offering us not only a vague guide to our past, but perhaps also to our “deep future.” It’s a transformative film – and I think there’s room for a CSI-type drama about Professor Dawson’s work.