The first two parts of George Finlay Ramsay’s exploration of community, ritual, and the documentary’s role in mythicisation are screening as part of the Film London Jarman Award 2025 shortlist. Beginning somewhat on the nose, one slowly realises that Flesh, Wax and Glass Pt I & II is investigating more than just a blood-letting ritual.

In Part I, “Saturno’s Dream,” we meet Saturno just days before his 33rd Vattienti procession, a long-held tradition in this small Calabrian town of walking the streets while hitting one’s leg with glass spikes, crowned with an asparagus-leaf wreath resembling the Crown of Thorns. We feel Ramsay’s presence strongly throughout, not only in his narration but in what he gives of himself to the family. We find out after that Saturno had a heart condition, one that Ramsay only discovered after receiving a call, a week later, that it had caused Saturno’s demise. In Part II, “The Age of the Son,” Ramsay returns to Calabria a year later to follow Saturno’s son, Francesco, in the lead up to his first Vattienti without his father.

Evident in the imbalance in duration between the two parts is the new, much more personal approach that Ramsay takes in Part II. Not least because of this newfound grief for Francesco, but also in Ramsay’s loss of power over the representation. Affected by the loss himself, he’s thrown off balance, taking a much more personal, involved approach to documenting the family. 

There are moments of self-reflection in both films, but in this second part, the reflections are less so of his role as the filmmaker and more of his role as a human. His subjects begin to rebel, reluctant in their agreement to participate, and mocking him for being “less of a man.” However, we only know this because Ramsay himself tells us, in his not-so-God-like narration, playing into his investigation. The film becomes less ethnographic than its outset suggests, becoming “something else,” as Francesco’s mother muses, “something more personal.”

As such, Ramsay questions himself as the travelling filmmaker, piercing through the frame by situating himself within the Calabrian context. Ramsay quite bluntly addresses this symbol at the beginning, proclaiming the “skin of the film” in what becomes an unavoidable metaphor between the film and its stakes, presented more as the object of examination that it is the entry point into our understanding of the film. As the film transpires, however, Ramsay’s haphazard innocence, retold by him through anecdote, as well as in relation to various religious and mythological texts, allows us to confront the metaphor through him.

Indeed, we are not free of involvement in Ramsay’s reflection. He invokes images from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1964 biblical epic The Gospel According to St. Matthew at a couple of points in “The Age of the Son,” a way of reminding us that the way we understand this film, this foreign ritual that conjures feelings of disgust before it does understanding, is a ritual in itself. Pasolini is one of a few filmmakers who has already made social and political arguments through the portrayal of violence, which was novel at the time (hence his quasi-fugitive status). What Ramsay is interested in by connecting Pasolini is positioning present-day audiences after this fact, where Pasolini, and indeed other, non-political displays of violence, have informed our understanding of the images. Like a child learning their native tongue, we understand, we see these uncomfortable images by reference of what has come before.

It is not just Ramsay who is piercing the “skin of the film”; he has also set us up to pierce through it, contributing as much to our own understanding of the film as he does. By the end of Part II, just as Francesco has come to terms with the ritual without the presence of his father, we too must come to terms with the ritual of image-viewing to understand this foreign tradition.

Talking about the film, Ramsay attributes the bloodletting ritual to a “forced transcendence”; the idea that if something is painful, if it is outside of your comfort zone, then it is also “out of body”. This experience, though painful, allows for an Archimedean view of ourselves, helping us assess our position in the world. As far as modern politics and media are concerned, this is no mean feat, but for Flesh, Wax and Glass, this produces a thought-provoking, yet nonetheless human and intimate film.

Flesh, Wax and Glass Part I & II, along with the rest of this year’s shortlisted films, are on display at Whitechapel Gallery until 14th December. Selected venues nationwide are also screening shortlisted works; to find out more, visit the Film London Jarman Award 2025 webpage.

Image courtesy of Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network