Mariam Ghani聽
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There aren鈥檛 many laugh-out-loud moments in Mariam Ghani鈥檚 documentary about our war on germs. But the sight of two British colonial hunters in former Ceylon bringing down a gigantic papier m芒ch茅 mosquito is a highlight.
Ghani intercuts such public information films (a rich source of inadvertent comedy) with monster movies, documentaries, thrillers, newsreels and histology lab footage to tell the story of an abiding medical metaphor: the body as citadel, beset by germs.
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Dis-Ease, which began life as an artistic residency at the UK鈥檚 Wellcome Trust, is a visual feast, with a strong internal logic. Left to stand on its own feet, it might have borne comparison with Godfrey Reggio鈥檚 Koyaanisqatsi or Simon Pummell鈥檚 Bodysong: films that convey their ideas in purely visual terms. But Ghani is as devoted to the power of words. Interviews and voice-overs abound. The result is an unsatisfying collision of documentary styles.
Yet there is little in Dis-Ease鈥榮 narrative to take exception to. Humoral theory (in which the sick body falls out of internal balance) was central to Western medicine up to the 19th century, when it was superseded by germ theory, in which the sick body is assailed by pathogens. Germ theory enabled global advances in public health and was most effectively conveyed through military metaphors.
Dis-Ease reveals how 鈥渨ars on disease鈥� mutate into wars on groups of people. A 鈥渨ar on disease鈥� also preserves and accentuates social inequities through its prevailing assumption that outbreaks spread from 鈥渄eveloping鈥� south to 鈥渄eveloped鈥� north, and the north responds with tech fixes that move south.
At its very founding in 1948, the World Health Organization argued against this, and the eradication of smallpox in 1980 was achieved through international consensus by funding primary healthcare worldwide. Eradicating polio, begun in 1988, has been more problematic, and the film argues this is due to wealthier countries imposing a narrow medical brief (paying for vaccines rather than basic aspects of healthcare) even as countries were under pressure to privatise their health services.
Ecosystems are being eroded and zoonotic diseases now emerge more frequently. Well-coordinated military responses to frightening outbreaks are understandable and can be effective. For example, to criticise the British and Sierra Leonean military intervention in 2014 to set up a National Ebola Response Centre would be to put ideology before common sense. But, argues the film, such actions can backfire, absorbing cash that might have bought essentials.
In one interview, the sociologist Hannah Landecker says that since adopting germ theory, we have managed life with death, but that we should manage life with life, using our knowledge of the complex microbial world to ensure health, not fight disease.
What this means is beyond the scope of Ghani鈥檚 film, and some gestures it makes towards a 鈥渙ne health鈥� model of medicine 鈥� as illustrated by a hippy couple repeating the refrain 鈥渓ife and death are one鈥� 鈥� caused this reviewer some discomfort.
Dis-Ease ends up as a snapshot of what desk-bound academics, rather than field researchers, think about disease. Many talk sense, though a special circle of hell is reserved for the one who, after reading too much science fiction, says glibly we can be cured 鈥渂y becoming something else鈥�.
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Simon Ings is a novelist and science writer. Follow him on X @simonings
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