Directed by: Jonah Bekhor & Zach Math.
Featuring: Páll Arason, Sigurður Hjartarson, Tom Mitchell.
It would be easy to make
fun of the people in documentary The Final Member. It is about the Icelandic
Phallological Museum – the world’s only penis museum, and its founder Sigurður
Hjartarson, who has a penis of just about every species in the world display –
except for a human. He considers his life work – he has been at this 40 years,
and is in his 70s – to be incomplete until he gets a human penis. But getting
one has proven to be decidedly difficult. And then he gets two offers – from
living men – to donate the museum their penis when they die. The first is from
fellow Icelander Páll Arason, who is famous in his home country for many things
– including for being a womanizer. He's now into his 90s, and says he doesn’t
need his penis after he dies. But he also worries about, uh, shrinkage – in his
old age everything is getting smaller. This also worries Hjartarson, who needs the penis to be of legal
length – that is 5 inches, which is based on an old joke. The second offer is
from an American – Tom Mitchell – who has a rather large penis, that he calls
Elmo, and wants it to be the most famous penis in the world – not for him
though, but for Elmo. He even wants to have his penis removed from his body
while he’s still alive – and has a lot of ideas of how it should be displayed.
Yes, it would be easy to
make fun of all three of these men if the filmmakers had wanted to. But that
isn’t what directors Jonah Bekhor & Zach Math do in The Final Member.
Instead, they treat all three of these men with respect and sincerity.
Hjartarson is a man who has many different intellectual ambitions – the penis
museum is just one of them. But to him, if something is not being discussed
openly, than he wants to do just that. There is nothing smutty about his
museum, nor his interest in penises – and surely there are museums dedicated to
pretty much everything else in the world, so why not penises. Of the three, Arason
is the least well defined – he is getting older so he isn’t interviewed as much
– but many of his relatives are. He wants something of himself to live on –
something that gave him, and according to him many, many women, so much
pleasure. But the shrinkage is a concern – if it gets too small, it could hurt
his reputation.
Most interesting of the three is Mitchell – who is also undeniably the most eccentric of the three. He is completely sincere about his desire to make Elmo the most famous penis in the world. He is also very strange in many ways – and his constant calls and e-mails to Hjartarson start to drive him crazy. For much of the movie, Mitchell seems like just a strange guy – but there are scenes late in the movie, where we find out some more about him that put what we know about him into context.
There is a lot of humor in The Final Member to be sure – anyone who would either run a penis museum or want his penis in a penis museum has to be a little bit funny. But it’s the sincerity and honesty of the documentary that won me over. It isn’t a great documentary by any means – but it’s a fine one, and the type of story that works best as a documentary. If this were a feature, no one would believe it.
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