Dying in Sight & Sound

Matthias Glasner’s Dying unfolds in five chapters and an epilogue, and the fourth of these chapters is entitled ‘Der Schmale Grat’ or ‘The Thin Line’. The line in question is the tightrope that artists walk between making work that is accessible to the masses while remaining steadfast in their pursuit of truth. Fail to hit that fine margin, composer Bernard Drinda (Robert Gwisdek) warns, and you’re left with nothing more than kitsch, which Bernard describes as the dismal result when “the feeling doesn’t reach to reality.”

The character of Bernard may be speaking for the writer-director, who spends three hours navigating a series of perilously thin lines and constantly reaching for a vivid sense of reality. When Glasner opens Dying on the sight of an old woman sitting in her own faeces while her husband wanders around half-naked and oblivious to her plight, the stage seems set for a pitiless examination of the indignities of old age, à la Amour (2012) or Vortex (2021), but his film moves in unpredictable ways which reflect the complex and contradictory nature of these characters. Glasner finds comedy amid the tragedy, and pathos in the mess of life.

Read the rest of my review at Sight & Sound

Discussing National Gallery on the Wiseman Podcast

As a longtime admirer of the legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman it was my pleasure to recently take part in the Wiseman Podcast, where I talked about his 2014 film National Gallery. This particular film is one I cherish, as it led to me interviewing Wiseman for the film’s release in 2015, and I enjoyed revisiting it for this conversation, which covered the film and how it reflects wider aspects of Wiseman’s career. The Wiseman Podcast is hosted by Shawn Glinis and Arlin Golden, who have created an invaluable resource in their film-by-film analysis of this great filmmaker. You can listen to our National Gallery conversation and find the previous 45 episodes here.