Dying

Dying
Dying

Spread across three hours and five different chapters, Matthias Glasner’s Dying’s focus shifts on an almost dead elderly couple, their successful composer son and a drunken ne’er do well daughter as a story of a disrupted family of four. The film registers drama and every other lead is impressive. Still, the impact of Glasner’s rigidity remains remarkable as their stories do not seem to be inherently related to one another none of them has much to say. Still, they keep growing while apart.

To a German couple Lissy (Corinna Harfouch) and Gerd Lunies (Hans-Uwe Bauer) living in the countryside, one cannot call Nena and clinging Lissy and Gerd some other way. Gerd is a naked wanderer suffering from dementia and Lissy struggles with multiple ailments. Both of them are practically incapable of helping each other and their grown up children who put their life somewhere between urban jungles do not want to get involved.

The premise borders on ‘misery porn’ as the only reasonable explanation for similar works like Michael Haneke’s ‘Amour’ or Gaspar Noe’s ‘Vortex’, about helpless older couples but he does not mince words or insights in the face of these indignities. To make them more bearable he does not sugarcoat them too instead, he takes them as given, including Lissy’s mortification and her strained reaction to uninvited help.

As Lissy struggles with her decision to mate Gerd with an assisted living facility, ‘Dying’ interestingly touches the theme of death specifically the fear of dying, or in this case, being alone in the act of dying that dominates the narrative. But when it turns to their son Tom (Lars Eidinger), who is in the turmoil of middle age the structure of the film starts to creak. Tom now acts as a pseudo step-father to his ex’s child from another man while being in the middle of rehearsing an orchestral piece named ‘Sterben’ (‘Dying’), which has been penned by his old friend and annoying partner Bernard (Robert Gwisdek), but it seems that the younger musicians do not appreciate its nuances.

The dialogues and the arguments about death allow the musicians to relate and convey themselves in new and unique ways while at the same time, the cinematic self a deconstructionist attitude so to say, loses its dynamism due to the fact that Glasner along with cameraman Bejnarowicz rarely depict that creative evolution visually in their storytelling. In the words of one of the notable critics for Tom for ‘orchestra directing’ indeed the quote can be rephrased as The whole thing is a huge banality. This particular remark comes at the end of the movie more as kind of a self mockery as if the film attempts to shield itself but this tendency of self preservation is merely one of the causes of its difficulties. There is no denying that the pairing of Craig and Frances in any singular scene was absurd. ”Dying” is more often than not too pragmatic and too sealed in its nature to have any kind of real effect whatever the standard of the performances that are undeniable.

In the movie Gerd, Bauer, like many other lonely characters wanders through hallways in search of attention, and it is by no means simple for him. So too is tragic the disinterest in his own life of Oleg’s character, who keeps the stillness of Eidinger only for brief moments when Tom visits. His interaction with Harfouch is exhibited seductively not only is it a clever casting decision where both Tom and Lissy look identical, but it also opens doors to morbid awkwardness where talking about regret is more natural when one’s death is the inevitable truth.

Unfortunately, Glasner’s rigid visual style is complemented by the rigidity of her writing. The conversation is often fast (Harfouch in particular is deadly after that), but as far as “Dying” manages to showcase deep connections developed between the characters over time, such moments are rare. In the course of the film, words begin to be an obvious protective shell, which is what the film constantly wants when Tom’s sibling is introduced as the fourth surprising member of the family: Tom’s sister Ellen (Lilith Stangenberg), an unprofessional musician and a distracted and married dentist who is having an affair with her boss, Sebastian (Ronald Zehrfeld).

The relationship that develops between the two is bound to be the most dramatic of the film’s numerous romances, the only time the viewer will be emotionally affected since Eva is quite a dynamic character and the angle, the motion, and the energy all come together to evoke a feeling but the film does not succeed in seamlessly creating or powerfully portraying the qualitative bond between Ellen and her family. Stangenberg plays the role of a young woman, who has become rugged due to her addiction and loneliness, with excellent conviction yet she seems to be part of a different movie with its own beats. Instead of complimenting the central theme of the other chapters, the Ellen parts of the film serve as an afterthought.

The emotions surrounding the theme of social detachment and the resulting anxiety of unresolved ending are what bind these separate chapters together, but don’t suffice in lending the review of the ‘Broadway’ an intriguing purpose. One can see where disruptions could emerge where meaning collides with naive beauty these are the very weaknesses of monotony that can be either fully maintained or challenged in the movie, which seems to have been the aim of Glasner all along. If there’s anything that can be visibly inferred, then it has to do with the underlying idea of this piece the links smoothening the transitions between different threads involve phone calls, which assume a different life depending on the character through the lens of which they will be viewed later. I mean, in this sense, such a technique can be termed as a “gimmick” because stylistically “Dying” lacks all attributes of being a true film despite the high caliber of the subject matter and performance.

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