Youth Knows No Pain

As a child, filmmaker Mitch McCabe was already drawing little figures with wrinkles. By the time she was 30, she was completely obsessed by age, and the signs that betray it in particular. There's a good explanation for her preoccupation with staying young -- her now deceased father was a plastic surgeon. But why is the rest of America so obsessed? McCabe talks with doctors, plastic surgeons, and lots of women, like 53-year-old Sherry, who is happy she had her breasts done. A 26-year-old woman thinks the lines on her forehead are disgusting, and her friend decides not to drink out of water bottles anymore, this to avoid getting wrinkles around her mouth. In between all the stories of the multi-billion dollar industry, the now 38-year-old McCabe tells us about her youth. She realizes full well that the outside isn't everything, but even so -- the lines in the corners of her mouth have been bothering her for years. McCabe reminds us of Sunny Bergman, the Dutch director who denounced the extreme ideals of beauty in Over the Hill, but McCabe is less resolute. The more she learns about the possibilities to look younger, the greater the temptation becomes. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)