26/09/2024 - Costa Gavras delivers an ultimately uplifting film falling halfway between pedagogical tragicomedy and rugged yet truthful philosophical tale on the eminently delicate subject of death

Denis Podalydès and Kad Merad in Last Breath

"I like the truth". Much like one of the two main characters in his new film, Last Breath [+see also:
trailer
interview: Costa-Gavras
film profile], which was presented in competition at the 72nd San Sebastián International Film Festival, Costa Gavras has, for the entirety of his filmmaking career, demonstrated an undeniable desire to unveil, or even denounce, cruel situations (dictatorships in L’Aveu, Z, État de siège and Missing, the far-right in La Main droite du diable, the Occupation in Section spéciale, unemployment in The Axe [+see also:
trailer
film profile], papal inaction in Amen, inflexible ultra-liberalism in Adults in the Room [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Costa-Gavras
film profile], etc.) whilst injecting a spirit of resistance into his work wherever possible. But this time round, in his adaptation of Claude Grange and Régis Debray’s book Le dernier souffle: accompagner la fin de vie, the director uses fiction, mostly with the same relentless spirit as death itself, to broach an "inhumane situation we should reflect upon" in order to "make bearable the unacceptable".

Learning, understanding, seeing, listening and questioning: the reality of death marching imminently towards us is a burning societal issue ("no-one wants to believe in their own death and no-one wants to study it"), especially in western countries where populations are aging exponentially. "What do you do with your elderly people? You shut them up in boxes with other elderly people they don’t know", notes a Senegalese doctor who appears briefly in the film. Swimming against the tide of curative medicine, for which death represents a failure - a point of view which often goes hand in hand with intensive medication ("we continue with harmful treatments to appease patients and their families") and non-information vis-a-vis the patients and their condition - Doctor Augustin Masset (Kad Merad) places celebration of and respect for the person nearing the end of life at the heart of his palliative care unit. And meeting Fabrice Toussaint (Denis Podalydès), a philosophical writer with personal experience of the matter (a small black spot was recently found on his brain during an MRI scan), provides Masset with the opportunity to give a detailed explanation of how to "help a living person to die".

Blending a practitioner’s experience with philosophical thoughts ("giving up the ghost, but to whom?") in a variety of stories told via flashbacks or in situ consultations at the bedside of the dying, the film navigates between a wholly organic documentary-style basis (taking into account physical and psychological suffering, the harsh, truthful realism involved in identifying the most humane way to cross the divide between denial and accepting one’s "departure") and a fictional depiction which helps to create a caring distance and to avoid voyeurism and excess pathos whilst allowing emotion to inevitably pierce through from time to time. With solid performances from two kind and empathetic lead actors and some brilliant supporting roles to boot (courtesy of Marilyne Canto, Charlotte Rampling, Karin Viard, Hiam Abbas, Agathe Bonitzer, Ángela Molina, Françoise Lebrun), Last Breath very clearly aims to be a work for the largest audience possible, in order to convey its humane message which speaks in favour of the individual’s personal choice and the quest to provide reassurance without denying the inevitable truth: because there’s also “life” when it comes to "end of life".

Last Breath was produced by KG Productions, while Playtime are steering international sales.

(Translated from French)

Photogallery 25/09/2024: San Sebastian 2024 - Le Dernier Souffle

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Costa-Gavras, Charlotte Rampling, Claude Grange, Ángela Molina, Marilyne Canto
© 2024 Dario Caruso for Cineuropa - @studio.photo.dar, Dario Caruso