Dying
Sterben
Viewer Advice: Contains suicide themes.
This epic, darkly comic portrait of Franzen-esque family dysfunction won multiple awards at both the 2024 Berlinale and the German Film Awards.
The Lunies are in disarray. Parents Lissy and Gerd are both ailing, while son Tom, a well-regarded conductor, is too preoccupied to give them the full attention they need. He’s juggling work – overseeing a new orchestral piece composed by his severely depressed friend Bernard – and an odd relationship with an ex who wants him to co-parent her newborn child (to another man!). Meanwhile, daughter Ellen fumbles through life plagued by alcohol-induced blackouts and an affair with a married colleague.
Director Matthias Glasner (Mercy, MIFF 2012) wrote the screenplay as a homage to his own late parents, and the resulting work has been met with critical acclaim in his home country – winning Best Film, Actress, Supporting Actor and Actress at the German Film Awards and the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay, among others, at the Berlinale. A zippy, affecting portrait of a flawed but affectionate family, the film weaves moments of pitch-black humour throughout its five ‘chapters’, delivered often with poise by a brilliant Lars Eidinger (Everyone Else, MIFF 2016). Expertly navigating myriad registers and themes and animated by pitch-perfect performances, Dying is, at heart, an engrossing story about what it means to live.
“Exceedingly funny … Out of all the film’s many achievements, perhaps the most impressive is the ability to keep the tone balanced just on this biting point between tragedy and comedy in scene after scene.” – Hollywood Reporter
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