by Ali Mozaffari
Worth: $14.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Lars Eidinger, Corinna Harfouch, Lilith Stangenberg, Ronald Zehrfeld, Robert Gwisdek, Hans-Uwe Bauer
Intro:
… masterful balance of tragedy and black comedy …
Dying is an unexpected discovery from Matthias Glasner, a veteran filmmaker in German film and TV who’s made waves with this film in his home country but not very well known globally, until now.
The narrative is presented in five connected episodes. It starts as a tragic portrayal of an elderly couple who grapple with old age and ‘dying’ in suburban Germany and just when we expect to see a film perhaps tonally and thematically reminiscent of Amour (Michael Haneke) or Vortex (Gaspar Noé), it shifts gear in its second episode to the story of the old couple’s son, a modern-day conductor in Berlin who’s ‘dying’ inside. He’s stuck between an ‘undefined’ affair, co-parenting his ex-partner’s child from another man, and trying to prepare his young orchestra against a deadline to perform his depressive best friend’s latest work called ‘Dying’.
The film’s five segments/episodes connect with a phone call that starts the film. However, the writer/director doesn’t always remain faithful to one character’s perspective in each episode/narrative, which is not fully justified or explained.
Dying is ambitious and manages to tell the story of a dysfunctional family focusing on one family member more or less in each episode and portraying an often dark and tragic picture of their lives. Old age, modern open relationships, the pain and suffering of artistic creation and of course ‘dying’ are all among the themes touched on in the film, but it seems at its heart, it’s a family drama and its best scenes happen where the film readjusts its focus to that. At times, some segments feel too extensive, without further exploring the themes or developing the characters (mainly, the sister’s episode).
Despite its episodic narrative, the film doesn’t make bold stylistic choices and uses a realist style for its narrative. Some subplots are predictable and could have been removed in favour of a more focused story, but only then does it offer imaginative and memorable scenes that push the story dramatically and keep you glued to the screen. The opening scene and the father’s funeral are among those, before we get to the mother and son dialogue scene after the funeral, which comes almost at half point. This scene can be considered the heart of the film, where we realise why these characters are the way that they are (in the son’s words: why they are such terrible people) and dramatically justifies why they often act ‘lifeless’. The film often goes back to explore ‘Dying’ by shifting its focus to the father’s death (in a striking long take) and much later in the last episode, it goes back to the depressive composer and a refreshingly unexpected scene in the film. However, when the film does return to the composer, it feels like this character needed a more dramatic role and longer screen time.
Dying is well cast, and the actors perform their characters’ nuances thoroughly, though as mentioned, it is an ambitious film in terms of the time and the extent to which it explores its characters’ lives, which becomes its Achilles heel as it tries to tackle many themes and sometimes loses focus, though always engaging. What saves the film overall is its masterful balance of tragedy and black comedy, which helps its heaviest scenes work effortlessly.
