Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Some things I liked some I did not.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Blistering performances.

This is a film everyone should see. Particularly if you have someone you care about who is ill and could die. I took care of my partner for 9 months in a hospice and then for 5 yrs. at home. The final days still haunt me. This would have prepared me beyond what reading, or telling me could accomplish. It was difficult to see this film as it so mirrored my own experience at the hospice and to the final days at home. The experience has shown me how terrible it is that we do not provide physician assisted suicide. Instead we put them through this process of dying and suffering through it. Plus unless you are insured, we take away everything you have so you can afford to die. This film serves as a wake up call to the reality of death.

My mother died of ovarian cancer and my brother and I took care of her for the majority of that time. What happens to all 5 souls in this movie is exactly what happened to my mom, down to the very smallest detail. There isn't a whole lot of variety to what happens. The person progresses from fairly coherent (themselves, if you will) to more and more aloof, then finally, that awful eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head and labored breathing part (the end). I'm a scientist and an observer. I know darn well what the real cause of death for all of these people (including my mother) was... it's called dehydration. There's a point when the person can't eat or drink anymore, and that's when you know they won't last another week. All that labored breathing is for oxygen that a low blood volume (dehydration) can't supply. There has to be better way than starvation. Truthfully, my mom could have done without the last 2 weeks of her life, and so too could these people. Watch this movie and live in reality, just for a moment. Take some time off from those Will Ferrell movies, you know.

One of the heaviest films I've ever seen. Also one of the best documentaries. I saw this at the Phoenix Film Festival where it rightfully won Best Foreign Film and thought it was the most moving film I saw there. Completely shows a side of death that cinema usually ignores: banal reality. Five ordinary people die of cancer over the course of 14 weeks in an ordinary hospital. No characters. No interviews. No narration. No redemption. No plot-twists. Slow paced. That's what happens to people who get cancer. This film completely takes the physical and emotional reality and turns it into a cinematic emotional abyss. Really makes you wonder how you will die or if this is an oracle into your future. Absolutely amazing footage. This is no mere snuff film, mind you. This is a film that takes reality and shoves it into your face. All these poor people have is their dignity and even that is taken away. A tragedy even more in that it is reality. Such is life.

This was a very moving insight the thoughts and feelings of five people during their final few days on this earth. Having very compassionate health care workers to talk to about death and the afterlife. Some moments in the documentary nearly brought me to tears. If you get the chance, watch it, but I do NOT recommend it for young children, as there are some disturbing scenes.