DYING AT GRACE (ALLAN KING FILMS, 2003)

By Rick Jackson

Produced and directed by Allan King, Dying At Grace is a documentary focussing on five dying patients in the palliative care ward at the Salvation Army Toronto Grace Health Centre. The families of these five gave their permission to record their loved ones' final days so their experiences would be useful to the living.

As you see each one chronicled, you are reminded that dying can be achieved with dignity and respect. The dialogue is real; everything you see is real. Nothing presented here comes close to any Hollywood production. The intimacy of the camera tells the stories of these five who are treated with the utmost kindness and hospitality by the staff.

You are given a short summary of each patient's condition by the nurse who articulates what is wrong. You empathize with each one of them and, in the process, you are left feeling a deep sense of peace and regret that they each died much too soon. Although the circumstances why each are there are unimportant, it is the one moment of truth when they die you learn to accept.

Anyone who has ever been at the hospital when a relative has died may be very well reminded of the hurt, the pain and the loss. For dying is part of living and when you are struck down by an illness, such as cancer or simply told you are too old,it is the shared knowledge of all five which gives you a greater understanding of your own apprehension about dying. True, each person handles death differently and King shows us this with the utmost respect and wishes to each family.

One of the most important characters in this documentary is Major Phyllis Bobbitt, the chaplain who helps comfort each patient by being their friend. She gets each patient to open up and through a mutual trust able to find out what they are thinking and feeling. Her conversations also give each a chance at peace and hope in their suffering.

The nurses are the supporting cast. They talk to the patients and make sure each of them is comfortable.

The five patients are Joyce Bone, who suffers discomfort through the night and can't sleep because of the pain; Carmela Hardone is on oxygen and is nervous about the family visiting her; Eda Simac is optimistic that she will get better as the most talkative; Richard Pollard, who has lung cancer and hepitatis, and Lloyd Greenway, also on oxygen and talks about death constantly.

It is clear that close family relations each feel a sense of relief when their loved one dies. One relative says, "She will leave in peace."

Before each one dies, you get to see their last breath and it's not anything like you've seen in Hollywood where the person closes their eyes and their hand drops. Here death is as real as it gets.

The sunrises and sunsets you see are symbolic of the beginning and ending of one's life and cinematographer Peter Walker shows the essence of it. For noone should leave this world without knowing the full impact of God's creation.

When Dying At Grace was shown on TV Ontario's The View From Here on February 11, 2004, there was a panel discussion with Allan King and Major Phyllis Abbott. King wanted to make a film that expressed what it was like to die. Now in his early seventies, the Vancouver-born filmmaker doesn't know how long he has left and wanted to address this very real and important issue. Very few people get to see how someone dies and death, in itself, is not something everyone will feel comfortable as a topic of conversation. Dying At Grace treats death with dignity and respect. It shares five experiences which tell what it is like to the very end of one's life in a quiet but powerful manner of speaking. The camera recording each emotion and reaction as it happens.

February 28, 2004

Copyright 2004 Rick Jackson