Since becoming infatuated with microbes during a college course, the Warsaw-based microscopist James Weiss has built his own tiny universe around these tiny creatures, co-creating a successful YouTube channel that introduced viewers to the wondrous world of hidden life all around them. In A Body Called Life, the Berlin-based filmmaker Spencer MacDonald flips the lens on Weiss to reveal how, following a difficult childhood and subsequent struggles with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, he found solace by self-isolating in the world of his microscope.
Adapted from a series of Instagram posts by Weiss, the film blends reenactments, live action and, of course, some exquisite microscopy to explore how his tendency to seek ‘comfort in unusual places’ culminated in his spending up to 16 hours at a time with only single-celled organisms as company. To accompany Weiss’s words, MacDonald crafts a rich cinematic language that connects worlds unfathomably large and small. The result is immersive and intimate, as Weiss details how, with the help of therapy, he ultimately came to believe that the interconnectedness of all life is inescapable – and indeed wonderful.