Under Our Skin (Sunday, June 21, 2009) (70)

This was my fourth documentary of the weekend and the fourth documentary about nature and health and sad stories of people and things dying (well, Earth was only briefly about that, but still). This one was probably the best of the four (albeit with a rather grizzly title....ewww). I have no idea why I saw this - it's a documentary about Lyme disease - which makes it the second movie this year about Lyme disease that I've seen this year... the other one being Lymelife (which was really terrible) and its massive spread through North America.

Warning: This film will make you never want to take a walk in the woods ever. It will scare the living shit out of you.

The film follows a handful of people from all over the country who have Lyme disease and are having trouble treating it. It seems that some doctors don't believe that Lyme disease has long-term consequences, but rather that it can be treated easily and been done with in a matter of weeks. The evidence on screen is very hard to deny as we see people who are sick for many years (they are filmed over a period of several years) suffering from various symptoms.

The film is very nicely cut and generally follows a chronological format bouncing around from one subject to another. It's very easy to follow and very interesting. I must say I never thought there was so much to know about Lyme disease and never thought I would be interested... but I was.

One think I always object to in documentaries like this is that it's clear that the director has a strong point that he's trying to make and sometimes the information given is just there to support the one point. I did notice that here - although it's hard to deny that point of view (I say this knowing that I know nothing about medicine). Basically it seems that insurance companies are the ultimate bad guy (again) and they're rather unreasonable in the case of this virus. It's very effective to see one doctor denying that there have *ever* been *any* cases of a mother with Lyme disease giving it to her child in utero - but then you see a handful of such situations - showing that doctor to be a fool.

It's not a very important movie, but it's effective and good. I liked it.

Stars: 2.5 of 4