
Director Allan King documents the final months of five terminally ill cancer patients at the Toronto Grace Health Centre.... (Full plot summary below)
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Director Allan King documents the final months of five terminally ill cancer patients at the Toronto Grace Health Centre.
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| User ReviewBecky EFantastic realistic documentary. Working in a E.O.L (end of life) setting myself, this is a caring and compassionate view of our daily job. The people who chose to take part each have a unique and different outlook on the end of their lives, displaying the real life cross mix of people we come to work with each day. Worth a watch by anyone, especially interesting to fellow medical staff. Only thing I would pre warn the average viewer to, is the genuine scenes of people's deaths. Even working on the job I do, seeing people take their last breath is still never easy. |
| User ReviewShane LPossibly the only professional film to show natural death occurring from start to finish, "Dying at Grace" is a revelation. It suffers from no artifice and shows practically no sign of creative interference. No, director Alan King knew well enough to stay out of the way of his own film. Through smart and seamless editing, the stories unfolding here silently give rise to a simple, yet compelling narrative; sooner or later, we all die. This documentary can be tough to watch at points; not only is it thematically stark and unflinching, but we actually get to see death. Yes, we watch several people transition from vital, intelligent individuals into physical vestiges, but more literally, the very last breaths of two people are documented up-close. And oddly, it isn't sad. It isn't terribly depressing. It's oddly natural. In a world built on a fear-based image of death, we forget that it's all an inevitable part of life. It doesn't jump out at you like a monster, and it doesn't descend upon you with darkness and pain. Though the diseases from which these people suffer prove insidious, their actual deaths are peaceful and merciful. Alan King was courageous in his efforts here, and they've paid off. Nothing like this had been done before, and nothing like it has been done since. The content of this film required immense capability and sensibility on the part of the director, and I believe anyone who sees the film start-to-finish will agree: Alan King did it right the first time. It's a grounding, muted, and honest work that does exactly what it's meant to do: let death speak for itself. |