‘Dying’ Review: Matthias Glasner’s Three-Hour Thanatopsis Feels Slight, Despite Its Epic Running Time
variety.comSiddhant Adlakha Over three hours and five different chapters, Matthias Glasner’s “Dying” chronicles the travails of an estranged family of four: an elderly couple on the brink of death, their successful composer son and their alcoholic, ne’er-do-well daughter.
The film casts a wide net over their experiences, and every leading performance is as impeccable as the last. However, Glasner’s formal rigidity prevents their stories from feeling intrinsically bound, leaving each of them with little to say.
The film opens in the German countryside with elderly couple Lissy (Corinna Harfouch) and Gerd Lunies (Hans-Uwe Bauer) being found helpless by a neighbor.
Lissy’s litany of ailments render her only semi-mobile, and she often ends the day by soiling herself, while Gerd’s dementia leads him to wander naked into people’s homes.
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