Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Matthias Glasner
Starring: Corinna Harfouch, Hans-Uwe Bauer, Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg
"A human life should be well rooted in some spot of native land, where it may get the love of tender kin," wrote George Elliot, and so it is probably fortunate that she died a century and a half (almost to the day) before the UK/ROI premiere of Matthias Glasner's superlative Dying lest the erstwhile writer of 'Adam Bede' get severely disheartened by the 2024 Berlinale Silver Bear Best Screenplay's cheerful cynicism regarding the sanctity of the consanguineous unit. Or perhaps not, because with its extended length, intertwining stories and mature exploration of duty, moral complexity, love and not-love, Dying achieves the same epic, human scope of a 19th Century Realist novel; the sort of unvarnished presentations of humanity which are commonly associated with the Victorian literary subgenre, and rarely explored to such unflinching depth in contemporary film or literature. Wunderbar!
And so, in this year's most incredible opening sequence, we duly witness matriarch Lissy Lunies (Corinna Harfouch) sat immobile in her own excrement as she attempts to phone call help for her husband who suffers with dementia and has gone for an early morning wander outside wearing nothing but an open night shirt. As Lissy attempts to contact her grown up, estranged children you too will hope you die before you get old. It is up to a neighbour to intervene (this is the thing about Dying - despite its raw representation of broken narcissists, it retains a consistent humanity and awareness of kindness) and guide the shit sodden Lissy towards a bathroom as Gerd (Hans-Uwe Bauer) returns, nob absent- mindedly swinging in the morning breeze. "Thank you, we'll manage," Lissy maintains through deep embarrassment. The calls to her children remain unanswered.
Divided into chapters (I said it was literary), we move from the Lunies seniors with their encroaching ailments, to their eldest son Tom (Lars Eidinger). Tom is in his mid-forties and a famed conductor, bringing to life an orchestral piece by his mate Bernard (an exceptional Robert Gwisdek), with whom he seems to be locked in a competition as to who can be the most sad-sack and depressed. In terms of Tom's own familial dynamic, he is having an affair with younger assistant Ronja (this is perhaps the only unconvincing note in Dying's otherwise compelling symphony: how did Tom manage to pull someone played by the resplendent Saskia Rosendahl? Maybe it's the size of his baton, etc), while acting as a parent to the newly born child of his ex, conceived via a one-night stand with some rando (the perils of being straight).
The orchestral mise-en-scene - clinical practice rooms, mahogany concert halls - is by now familiar due to films like Tár and Whiplash. But in refreshing contrast to the bossy boot antagonists of those films (I always find the archetype of the driven virtuoso faintly ridiculous. As the kids say, it ain't that deep. Same reason I could never seriously watch The Bear - cheer up son, it's only a bit of dinner) Tom is a good and kind leader, with Bernard the tortured artist, fretting about his aural vision and taking it out on orchestra bit players (the you wash/I'll dry dynamic of writer/conductor with its implications of creative responsibility intrigues). In a moment where Bernard is particularly horrible the film frames him as pitiful, in a similar manner to how a portentous plea from the writer is ultimately bathetic: Glasner delights in presenting the self-destructive idiocy of his personae. The music (written irl by Lorenz Dangel), by the way, is utterly beautiful, yet in a characteristic example of this film's playful perversity, we never get it hear it in full: a meta-frustration which mirrors the stalled hopes and status of the Lunies.
Then there is Ellen Lunies (Lilith Stangenberg), Tom's sister, younger than him but old enough for her actions to be a concern. Case in point: we first meet her as she comes to in an unfamiliar location due to an unexplained trip to Latvia. A blackout drunk, Ellen is the closest the film comes to relying on an archetype (although, as ever, there is a truth in the paradigm... At one point Ellen, waxing lyrical about martinis, enthuses about the first sip, the "liquid ice": I wince in recognition at making similar pontifications). A beautiful burnout, Ellen is barely holding it together as a dentist's assistant, and, true to form, embarks upon an affair with her boss (played by Ronald Zehrfeld, a lovely bear). One of the thrilling aspects of Dying is how the disparate episodes are characterised by different genre tones, yet still coalesce to a magnificent whole. In Ellen's story we witness body-horror-black-comedy (a drunk co-piloting root canal surgery: what could possibly go wrong?), which reaches an apotheosis when Ellen's face symbolically swells up – "I look like the Elephant Man" - an anaphylactic reaction to the unfamiliar love and consideration which Sebastian shows her. Pity he's married with a newly pregnant wife, then...
Dying opens with the direct to camera prologue of a small girl (baby Ellen?) intoning the sort of upbeat nonsense which only a child could believe. "Do whatever comes into your heart," the poppet entreats. With both Tom and Ellen's anxieties located in childhood trauma, part of Dying's thematic interest is how the naïve hopes of childhood are ruined by the cruel realties of adulthood. The filmmaker I was most reminded of was Todd Solondz, and the intertwined misanthropy of Happiness. However, Dying is more mature than Solondz's petty cynicism (it's funnier too, sample dialogue: "She shits herself every night." "Not EVERY night."). Glasner always offers hope and warmth, a necessary juxtaposition to the toxic egotism of his central players as the film touches upon human truths which are universal and identifiable to anyone who has been part of a family. In a flight of pseudo-inspirational babble which touches on the poetically perceptive, Bernard tells the orchestra that "we are on a rock, floating through space," and that art "transforms feeling into the vibrating air." Watching Dying you will feel seen.
Dying is in UK/ROI cinemas from July 25th.
