Dir: Gaelle Hardy, Agnes LeJeune | Belgium Doc 74′

Real people share their innermost thoughts in confronting death in this humanistic and affecting film about euthanasia from Belgian co-directors Gaelle Hardy and Agnes Lejeune,

In a wise and compassionate move, the Belgian government Wisely has legalised euthanasia. And the results are truly enlightening. No longer fearing physical pain and emotional anguish, a weight is lifted being those suffering endless trauma allowing them to end their lives with peace and dignity. The mentally fragile or seriously ill often feel a burden on their relatives, and are no longer valued in society. Now they can quietly take control and slip away in security and comfort.

In a consulting room in a public hospital in Belgium. Dr Francois Damas reflects on the wider concerns of his patients: both men and women, often accompanied by a relative. Most of them are seriously ill, but not all. Madame Vinciane Bonsignore just feels tired of living and is sick of being told to ‘get on with it’, describing her life like ‘a house with poor foundations’. Now she just wants to end it all. And we feel for her and so does Dr Damas, although he advises her to talk to her son. The trauma of assisted death has a major impact of those left behind, but most of the friends and relatives seen here seem acquiescent. In the case of terminal illness, they only want the best for those concerned. There is a perception that society no longer values the aged and infirm and this impacts on their ability to bear their suffering, often making it worse.

But one patient, Ziegfried Pohl attending with his favourite nephew, Michel Purage, has actually changed his mind about dying, having gradually come to terms with the shock of his wife’s death after 60 years of marriage. But for Michel Lombard the gruelling nature of his terminal illness means death will come as a welcome relief, and his wife Agnes Ries is fully supportive of his decision. Off camera we share the tranquility of his final moments looking out on the pleasant countryside from his hospital room as the family say their final farewells.

A round table discussion amongst the specialised medical team allows us privileged access to professional debate and discussion. The overriding message here is of compassion and understanding. As far as circumstances and the law allow, these patients want to choose their death, and are able to go ahead after frank and intensely authentic consultations.

Hardy and Lejeune direct with extreme sensitivity avoiding sensationalism. One of the most affecting scenes sees Dr Damas dissolve in tears when visiting the home of Sylvie Guerin whose young daughter Clara Dupont decided to end her own life after suffering from cancer, gently describing the reasoning behind the decision. How comforting to know the date of your own death, particularly for those who have no one left to share their lives with. This must be the ultimate in self-determination. MT

WARSAW FILM FESTIVAL |  2021

Dir.: Taras Tomenko | Ukraine 2021, 120 min.

Taras Tomenko revisits his 2017 feature with a stylish re-creation of the early years of Slovo House, an artist’s colony in the Ukrainian capital Kharkiv, built in the late 1920s. Originally intended as a showcase for Soviet art, the Stalinist security forces and their compliant censors soon turned the creative idyll from a paradise to a prison where dozens were executed. But in the early years, before  the Soviet-induced famine known as the Holodomor (1932-3)  wiped out seven million people, Slovo was a creative haven for the literati. 

In a blissful sunny afternoon in Slovo House, the artists, among them Mike Yohannsen, Tychyna, Pavlo Tychyna, Rayisa Troyan and Epik, are seen playing volleyball in the courtyard . Enter Volodymyr Akimov, a budding poet. The artists welcome him into their well-appointed wing which houses a solarium, a rarity in the Soviet Union. Somehow Akimov feels an outsider, his archaic poetry clashing with the others’ avant-garde efforts. A beady-eyed security officer senses his apprehension, offering Akimov the chance to become a spy from the privacy of his room, complete with a surveillance suite that takes in every other apartment in the block. Crucially he also offers Akimov the chance for literary success, duping an established author, Mykola Khuylioviy (Yakimchuk), into believing his play is on the censors’ list, and republishing it under Akimov’s name. Akimov then joins the pantheon of literary stars: when Bertholt Brecht, Theodore Dreiser and Bruno Yasensky meet for the Conference of Revolutionary writers in Kharkiv, the German playwright congratulates Akimov for a play he has not written.

But the noose is closing around the artists: Raya Troyanker (Levchenko), a self-styled ‘femme fatale’ is the first to be expelled from the colony. Meanwhile, Khuylioviy and another brave writer, travel to the Ukrainian countryside to confirm ‘rumours’ about the famine but have no chance to publish their horrific discovery, with tragic consequences for all concerned. But the Stalinist Security apparatus still grinds on: Akimov’s overseer is mortified by Khuylioviy’s fate, having has lost the source material for his ‘protege’s’ putative success.

Tomenko fashions his sophomore feature in the black-and-white style of contemporary Soviet films of the era, and although this works well from an aesthetic point of view, not so successful is his use of a ploy adopted by the propagandist filmmakers of the Stalinist era: he paints the villain, Akimov, blacker than black, making him into a serial rapist, highlighting his impotence. These voyeuristic, graphic descriptions sensationalise the core material detracting from the overall impact of this otherwise enlightening slice of Soviet history. AS

WARSAW FILM FESTIVAL 2021