DYING
GERMANY
Director: Matthais Glasner
Cast: Corinna Harfouch, Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg, Ronald Zehrfeld, Robert Gwisdek and Anna Bederke.
Genre: Tragi-comedic Drama
180 minutes: German with English subtitles – 2024
Rating: 16 D L N V
The very individual members of the Lunies family haven’t been a family for a long time. Lissy is quietly happy about her demented husband Gerd slowly wasting away in a home. However, diabetes, cancer and kidney failure mean that she doesn’t have much time left either. Son Tom, an orchestra conductor in his early 40s, is working on a composition called ‘Dying’, while being made the surrogate father of his ex-girlfriend’s child. Tom’s hedonistic sister Ellen meanwhile is a hot mess, drowning her sorrows at punk clubs and having an affair that’s clearly going nowhere. As Death finally turns up on the doorstep, the estranged family members finally meet again.
Dying unpicks the dynamics of what could be anyone’s family, illustrating that dysfunction may be lurking just beneath the surface. Dying is one thing, but Life is the real difficulty….
This masterfully crafted work of auteur cinema won three prizes at the Berlinale Film Festival and was then awarded Best Film at the 2024 German Film Awards, in addition to winning Best Lead Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Film Score.
The ingenious structuring of the narrative, coupled with the disarming gravitas that the actors bring to their roles, results in one of the most visceral portraits of the nuclear family as a botched project.
Diego Semerene, Slant Magazine
Glasner’s crisscrossing family drama manages to be exceedingly funny, keeping the tone impressively balanced on the biting point between tragedy and comedy
Leslie Felperin, Hollywood Reporter
Dying is full of glorious contradictions, many of which occur within the same conversation…
Amber Wilkinson, Eye for Film
Terrifically watchable and entertaining.
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
In clamouring for an inexpressible freedom, DYING suggests, perhaps, that one must both accept the limitations involved and aspire nonetheless to push past them.
Morris Yang, International Cinephile Society
