Dirty Work

HELP WANTED: Ideal applicant must work with mutilated corpses, human excrement, and large, dangerous animals in the throes of sexual frenzy. Benefits include bad smells, potential injury, sights few would ever want to see and a risk of social ostracism. Even today's desperate job-seekers may never consider the three career options in David Sampliner's probing (in more ways than one) documentary: a septic-tank pumper, a mortuary embalmer and a collector of bull semen, all of whom open up (in more ways than one) about the trades they ply. Although Bernard Holston considers considers filling the dead with formaldehyde and plastic bags an “art,” he otherwise takes a cheerfully pragmantic and unromantic philosophy toward his six-foot-under calling. Meanwhile, homespun “honeywagon” man Darrell Allen happily shares the messy chores with his wife. Dr. Russ Page, the “reproductive physiologist,” must carefully manuever an unpredictable beast's massive erection into an artificial vagina. “For people who work in an office, that's considered gross.” Ultimately there's an affirmation: “When you can get something you can do that nobody else wants to do – you are smarter than they are.” Contains footage not for the faint-hearted.