thin

a while ago i mentioned lauren greenfield the photographer/documentarian...anyways, i just re-watched her doc 'thin' on tvo last night. it's a mesmerizing portrayal of the lives of anorexics and bulimics in a treatment centre, and their moment-to-moment struggles to eat, to survive. to me, there is nothing more perplexing and fascinating than those who manage to restrict their eating to such an extreme degree. i have witnessed eating disorders up close and personal, always keeping a mental checklist of patterns and examinations and bite sizes and the use of supposed humour to deflect the other parties present. i have longed to say something, anything, but just never know what.

in portia de rossi's 'unbearable lightness,' she talks of how eating something like a potato not only represents a failure to control right then and there, but all the potatoes and all the failures of the future. in the film the girls speak of their eating disorder being the only thing they can control in their lives, and yet it is the thing that controls them. unequivocally. throughout thin you hope and hope that the girls will overcome the sickening relationships they have with their bodies, yet hopes fall flat in the end...devastating.