To control and think about death through cinema is perhaps one of the possibilities offered by Emmanuelle Bercot’s feature film starring Benoît Magimel and Catherine Deneuve. De son vivant tackles head-on the question of fate, through the life-and-death story of a young man in his forties suffering from a disease whose prognosis is grim. We follow Benjamin, in the last year of his life, as he faces the inevitability of his finitude announced in this clearly stated time frame: from six (...) months to one year. In so doing, he finds himself and his family plunged radically into the heart of his existential questions, faced with a series of choices that he must make, despite – or thanks to – the reality of his death. The many ethical issues encountered throughout his journey are exposed for all those involved: caregivers, patients and relatives. (shrink)

Édouard loses his memory. The thread of his life’s story dissolves, leaving him confused and lonely, and gradually cut off from a world in which, as we soon realize, he was accustomed to taking centre stage. An intellectual who is regularly invited to speak in the public arena, Édouard, the historian emeritus, is confronted with an illness that, ironically, affects his memory. He who, all his life, has reflected on his society by linking it to his past, gradually loses the (...) ability to place his own life on the thread of a continuous narrative. How do those closest to him cope with the disappearance of a part of Edouard’s identity? Is illness simply the opposite of health for him, or is it also fertile ground for a transformation that would, paradoxically, make him more alive, in the philosopher’s sense of the phrase “alive until dead”? What’s left of us when the story we tell ourselves escapes us? Analysis of François Archambault’s 2022 film: Tu te souviendras de moi. (shrink)

Commentary on the film, Tout s’est bien passé, by François Ozon, which tells the story of a person who wants to exercise his wish to die in the context of assisted suicide/euthanasia. The action takes place in France and shows the impact on the relatives.