Documentaries and oddities go hand in hand, generally, as some doc makers scour the world for things that most of us are unaware of. Point in case is Eli Kabillio's A Hole in the Head.If you've ever been interested in the fringe idea of trepanation or trepanning, then this is the film for you. Trepanation is a kind of surgery where one has a "dime sized" hole drilled in their head in order, as trepanists claim, to relieve excess pressure on the brain. Supposedly this operation paves the way to more creativity among other things of a positive nature, and although it has a very long history, it is relegated to the dustbin of pseudoscience nonsense.
While this may be an easy target to make fun of, the documentary itself explores the rich history of trepanation, which reaches as far back as the earliest societies on earth. It is an intriguing subject that offers much food for thought about how societies come up with an understanding of what troubles them and how they deal with it. There are still indigenous societies who practice trepanation to relieve many ailments, and we get a glimpse into an African village where many operations takes place.The documentary keeps an objective distance and allows the modern trepanners to speak for themselves, which, doesn't often shed a favorable light on their practice. The fact that many of them drilled the hole in their skull looking at themselves in the mirror is somewhat troubling by itself, but many of them laugh at it afterward as they describe the feeling of...ooops, did I go too far, or as they describe the jet-streams of blood that shoot out all over their bathroom walls after accomplishing their task. There are also interviews with people who had the operation done medically due to head trauma, and who extol their stories of effects, or not of their experiences.
The leading advocate in the film is Dr. Bart Huges, who unfortunately offers the usual panacea argument for trepanation, as well as his opinion as to how narrow a view the medical community has for these kinds of ideas, how they are against him, etc. He isn't without humor, but like many fringe frontmen, you just get the feeling he's not all there, while the few interviews with doctors offer, without malice, a simple breakdown of what happens when you have a hole in your skull: not much of anything.
Overall an interesting little doc that sheds a little beam of light on an old and strange part of our history.If you're interested you can find a torrent here
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