Reviews
Dying
Reviewed by Vaughan Ames
Last Sunday's showing of the German film 'Dying' did, unfortunately, frighten many of you away with its title and running time. This turned out to be a great shame as it was a compelling watch for those who did make it. As many critics had said, the three hours flew by. The film could equally have been called 'Living' as it followed the lives of a very messed up family. In six chapters, we saw the problems of, first, the parents, then the children... and, boy, were they a mess!
Gird, the father, was suffering badly from dementia whilst his wife, Lisa was dying of cancer. Their son, Tom, was trying hard to conduct the new symphony 'Dying', written by his friend Bernard, whilst supporting an ex-girfriend who was having a baby by a man she didn't like, and continuing his own relationship with his girlfriend which seemed to be heading nowhere. As for his sister: always feeling left behind by her popular brother, Ellen has decided to take the most unpopular job she can think of – dentistry – whilst consoling herself with alcohol... lots of it!
This was all gradually revealed as we realised there was little or no love-lost between any of them. Oh, and I haven't mentioned there were a lot of comic moments too...
The acting was all excellent, the script superb, even the music was moving, so what's not to like? Nothing really, though why the director Matthias Glasner decided to call it 'Dying' we could not work out – did he really want no-one to come and see it? The last chapter was called 'the thin line', which Tom describes as what an artist has to aim at – not too easy for the audience, but not too hard either. Was Glasner pushing the limits of that line..? I suspect you have missed your only chance to see this, though it is on BFI Player; recommended - a really interesting movie which will give us lots to think about for some time.
Gird, the father, was suffering badly from dementia whilst his wife, Lisa was dying of cancer. Their son, Tom, was trying hard to conduct the new symphony 'Dying', written by his friend Bernard, whilst supporting an ex-girfriend who was having a baby by a man she didn't like, and continuing his own relationship with his girlfriend which seemed to be heading nowhere. As for his sister: always feeling left behind by her popular brother, Ellen has decided to take the most unpopular job she can think of – dentistry – whilst consoling herself with alcohol... lots of it!
This was all gradually revealed as we realised there was little or no love-lost between any of them. Oh, and I haven't mentioned there were a lot of comic moments too...
The acting was all excellent, the script superb, even the music was moving, so what's not to like? Nothing really, though why the director Matthias Glasner decided to call it 'Dying' we could not work out – did he really want no-one to come and see it? The last chapter was called 'the thin line', which Tom describes as what an artist has to aim at – not too easy for the audience, but not too hard either. Was Glasner pushing the limits of that line..? I suspect you have missed your only chance to see this, though it is on BFI Player; recommended - a really interesting movie which will give us lots to think about for some time.