My Body

There is really not much wrong with Margreth Olin’s body. She is a healthy, strong woman, who has given birth to two children. Still, Olin’s relationship with her body can best be described as a love-hate relationship. Right from childhood, she was told many things that were wrong with her looks. She filed them in her memory and never forgot. ‘With those strange lumps on your feet, you’ll never be able to find shoes to fit you’, her mother told her for instance. The school dentist informed her: ‘Your teeth are so crooked that you can’t even bite a frankfurter in two.’ Her belly was too fat, her fingers misshapen, her throat swollen by a disease… Especially women were always finding fault with the filmmaker’s body in one way or another, whereas she rarely got complaints from men. The short documentary My Body is an extremely personal and at the same time recognisable story. Olin is definitely not an exhibitionist; she reluctantly shares her worries and doubts, and envies her exuberantly dancing daughter, who is still free of complexes about her appearance. It is precisely the combination of candour and restraint that makes My Body a cogent, significant documentary, which is also beautifully composed. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)