A Certain Kind of Death

The question of what happens to unclaimed and sometimes unidentifiable corpses is taken up in "A Certain Kind of Death." Docu team of Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock lets the procedure for dealing with this issue speak for itself. Despite its awkward length, commercial potential exists in public TV, cable, homevid and even theatrical arenas.

The seldom considered question of what happens to unclaimed and sometimes unidentifiable corpses is taken up with matter-of-fact directness in “A Certain Kind of Death.” Calmly approaching a subject that could have emerged as grotesque, grisly or darkly humorous in other hands, docu team of Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock lets the procedure for dealing with this obscure but fundamental issue speak for itself. Simply because the images are so stark and unprecedented, pic generates some indelible scenes; despite its awkward length, specialized commercial potential exists in public TV, cable, homevid and even theatrical arenas.

Adopting a dry, procedural tack, docu is populated by businesslike folks in the various Los Angeles County departments charged with processing the remains of individuals with no traceable next-of-kin, of which there might be a thousand or so every year. Officials from the coroner’s office, police and notifications department are routinely involved, followed by public administrators who look into the existence of wills, assets, et al.

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Pic doesn’t blink at showing the sometimes bloated and/or decomposed bodies of loners found in dingy apartments or cheap hotel rooms, sometimes long after death; the film’s most comically human moment stems from such a scene, in which an attractive blond police officer, occupied with a particularly unwieldy corpse, takes a personal call on her cell phone and says, “Wrapping a body. What are you doing?”

Without overtly editorializing or manipulating the material, film presents an aspect of local government that seems to work pretty well, with discretion, tact and respect for the deceased who mostly fell through society’s cracks. Climax in the crematory reveals that remains are held for four years after death just in case a claim is made; only then will a person’s ashes be disposed of in the modern equivalent of a common paupers’ grave.

Hadaegh and Babcock clearly went to considerable lengths to gain the trust and cooperation of their workaday subjects, who can scarcely ever have imagined that what they do would earn them a place in the movies; they’re hardly scintillating personalities, but they hold the screen adequately given the brief running time.

What with the potential here for macabre humor and exaggerated weirdness, it’s hard to suppress musings on what an Errol Morris would have done had he fixed on the same subject. But Hadaegh and Babcock’s steady gaze pays its own considerable, if esoteric, dividends.

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