A Necessary Death

A Necessary Death had its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX. It's hard to know what to think of a feature film that appears to be intentionally passing itself off to audiences as a documentary about the making of a student film on about a person planning to commit suicide. Much of the audience - myself included - was confused and thought that the film was an actual documentary. As a documentary, the project would be incredibly startling and disturbing.

As a feature film, the project is creative, but also a bit of gimmicky and somewhat emotional manipulative, because the audience feels like they are being shown something real which is really a complete work of fiction. If the film opens a wider debate about the ethics of suicide and, in this case, the ethics of the euthanasia, that may be positive, but its more likely to lead to a debate about the ethics of film making. Realistically, the film's approach so off-putting and confusing that it is unlikely to get much theatrical distribution. Also, the last third of the film and especially the ending seems a bit overly melodramatic. It feels like the writer/director made the film in an effort to get himself noticed in film circles by doing something creative and out-of-the-box.

Well, he has done that, but I'm not sure if the effort to confuse the line between fact and fiction is a healthy one or not. The film is entertaining, but also a bit disturbing in a way that doesn't necessarily seem particularly constructive. It is asking questions about the ethics of documentary film making, but it is unclear to this observer if they are questions that are particular important ones to ask or to answer.