A Life Without Pain - Review

A Life Without Pain

9 tonight

(Sundance Channel)

As if the title weren't ironic enough, watching this documentary on children who were born with a rare congenital defect that renders them unable to feel pain is, at times, ironically almost too painful to see. Filmmaker Melody Gilbert, who directed the docu "Whole," a look at people who choose to become amputees, here focuses her lens on kids who are at risk and don't even know it. It's a substantial piece of work and well worth the discomfort it takes to view.

Gilbert follows several children, a 3-year-old in Minnesota, a 7-year-old from Norway and 10-year-old from Germany, and looks at the day-to-day struggles of these kids and their parents as the youngsters go about hurting themselves inadvertently simply by playing, being in the house and taking up the business of being a normal kid. When teething as infants, they may have chewed through their lips without knowing it hurt; now the possibilities for hurt get larger as the kids grow. But they also learn how to handle their rare condition, and we get to hope that they will overcome the dangers and, ironically, the psychic pain of their disorder.

The docu is an eye-opening experience at the very least, and Gilbert's intense look at the situation is compelling in every way.