‘Sick’: Love, Acts of Defiance and Fighting Pain of Disease

“Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist” is a title sure to turn off lots of people, and indeed Kirby Dick’s astute documentary is not for the faint of heart. It’s one of those pictures, however, worth knowing about even if you never see it.

That’s because of the way in which Flanagan and his wife, Sheree Rose, integrate extreme behavior within everyday existence. They come across as decent, decidedly courageous individuals with an extraordinary degree of self-knowledge. They command respect even if you are repelled by their specific activities.

Cystic fibrosis combined with a Catholic upbringing lead Flanagan to conclude that he could alleviate the pain of his disease through masochistic behavior. (“Jesus,” he declares, “is the most famous masochist.”) Rose is right when she says her husband was lucky to meet her, for she is a sadist. Beyond these dovetailing predilections, Flanagan and Rose prove to be an exceptionally creative and intelligent couple who were able to turn their obsessions into art, albeit of a highly specialized kind and involving at times an overwhelmingly brutal exhibitionism. Flanagan became a writer, visual artist and performance artist while Rose, along with assisting in his performance art, became a photographer and video artist, and in those roles she in fact contributed significantly to this film.

Still, “Sick” is hard to take. If elaborate public and private displays of sadomasochism are not your thing--even if meant to represent a triumph of the spirit and will over the pain of disease--it becomes a serious turnoff. (Not everyone, after all, enjoys watching a man drive a nail through his penis.) On top of this, the film is a record of Flanagan’s death from cystic fibrosis in January 1996 at the age of 43.

He comes across as a gallant, darkly humorous man determined not to go gently into the night. Yet as his always-shaky health deteriorates, so does his relationship with Rose, who has difficulty accepting that he has finally reached the stage where he’s no longer up to submitting to her stinging ministrations--not even 42 “little spanks by the hand” to celebrate his birthday. Love proves stronger than a passion for S&M;, however, and Rose remains loyal and caring to the end and beyond.

While the film focuses foremost on Flanagan and to a lesser extent Rose, it offers insights to others as well. We meet a beautiful teenager, also stricken with cystic fibrosis, who via the Make-a-Wish Foundation gets to meet Flanagan, whose way of coping with their disease has captured her imagination, and most significantly, Flanagans’ parents, who knew nothing about the bizarre aspects of their son’s behavior until late in his life.

His mother, who lost two of her three daughters to cystic fibrosis, sees irony in her son’s deliberately endangering the life she and her husband strived to protect. His father has come to see his son as he saw himself, his life an act of defiance against God for the curse of cystic fibrosis. Flanagan was once the poster boy for cystic fibrosis, and in his unique way, remained so.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: The film depicts extreme sadomasochistic behavior and a man’s slow death.

‘Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist’

A Cinepix Film Properties presentation. Producer-director Kirby Dick. Co-producer Sheree Rose. Principal cinematographers Jonathon Dayton, Kirby Dick, Sheree Rose, Geza Sinkovics. Editors Kirby Dick, Dody Dorn. Music Blake Leyh. Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 478-6379.