Directed by:
Matthias GlasnerScreenplay:
Matthias GlasnerCinematography:
Jakub BejnarowiczComposer:
Lorenz DangelCast:
Lars Eidinger, Corinna Harfouch, Lilith Stangenberg, Ronald Zehrfeld, Robert Gwisdek, Saskia Rosendahl, Tom Böttcher, Anna Bederke, Hans-Uwe Bauer (more)Plots(1)
The Lunies family has not really been a family for a long time. Lissy Lunies, in her mid-70s, is quietly happy when Gerd, her husband who is slowly wasting away from dementia, is put in a care home. But her new-found freedom is short-lived: diabetes, cancer, kidney failure and the onset of blindness signal that she does not have much time left herself. Meanwhile, her son Tom, who is a conductor, is working on a composition entitled “Dying” with his depressive best friend Bernard. Tom’s ex-girlfriend Liv wants him to be the surrogate father of her child. His sister Ellen begins an affair with a married dentist with whom she shares a passion for alcohol and intoxication. But everything in life has its price. Confronted with death, the estranged family members finally meet again. (Berlinale)
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Reviews (1)
A superbly filmed, masterfully written and precisely acted requiem for fading family ties in five chapters and an epilogue, in which the complex characters take a non-trivial approach to dealing with their relationships with each other and the complicated problems associated with work, illnesses, childcare and various forms of dying in all of the complexity that life brings. The sophisticatedly constructed narrative changes perspective with each chapter, expanding the content of the overall situation and additionally enriching earlier events with new details and meanings. Dying is a brilliant work about the key influences on the formation of one’s personality and various ways of processing mental anguish, as well as about empathy and mutual understanding. A lot of its scenes, including several musical numbers, are worth remembering. Bravo.
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