THE FAREWELL PARTY

Israel, 2014, 95 minutes, Colour.
Ze'ev Revach, Lavana Finkelstein.
Directed by Tal Granit, Sharon Maymon.

A Farewell Party seems to light a title for this rather serious film. Some of the advertising and reviews emphasise comedy touches – and it does begin with an old man telephoning an older lady with dementia, pretending to be God, asking after her health and promising her a place in heaven (with his wife then rebuking him for playing tricks on susceptible people). But, the themes of the film are quite serious.

This is an in Israeli film, set in a home for the aged. After the initial joke, we are introduced to a very elderly man in a great deal of pain, dying, his wife upset, ranting at the nurses on the ward for not attending to her husband as she wished. Immediately, the issue of pain, palliative care, assisted suicide and euthanasia come to the fore.

The man who played pranks is something of an inventor and decides to make a machine that can administer something lethal to those in pain. The doctor they consult is certainly not in favour of euthanising patients. But they do get some advice from a vet, information about drugs administered to animals, and that gives the inventor as well as the dying man’s wife and other friends an incentive to go ahead.

This means that the screenplay challenges the audience: do they share the pain, the unbearable pain, of those who are dying, especially of the elderly? And the screenplay also raises the expected questions, the ethical questions, the moral questions, the religious questions, especially in the context of Israel.

When the machine is a success, there are various requests, as well as headlines of pacts between spouses who kill the other spouse and then kill themselves. One of the things that the group of the elderly do, apart from attending funerals, singing together, is making videos of those who are about to be euthanised, their final message, their consent.

Things come to a head when the wife of the inventor is sinking into dementia. She has been opposed to the machine and its applications but now…

All the characters all have their eccentricities – and touches of humour – but, the underlying themes of pain, age, suffering and death pervade every aspect of the film.

1. The title? The term? Serious and comic?

2. The Israeli setting, society, institutions, medical, health, age?

3. Films and death? The opening and the man and pretending to be the voice of God and the woman responding, wanting to get heaven? Illness and pain? Relatives of the aged, the angry wife? Style and behaviour? Angers?

4. Max, his pain, his wife, friends, the group and the support, the reaction of the staff, changing the patient, the requests, the theme of euthanasia?

5. Yeheskel. his concern, the voice of God, the idea of the machine, the workshop, his associate asking what the machine was?

6. Euthanasia themes, the range of attitudes, Israeli, issues of God, ethics and morality? Pro and con? Levana and her initial antipathy, at the end?

7. Talking with the doctors, the anti-euthanasia stance? Morality? Legal? Being sued?

8. The vet, his ideas, the party, his close friend, coming out, the explanations?

9. The machine itself, seen it in action, Max, his death? The group surrounding him?

10. The taking video of the aged people, the consent? The details of each video? The finale with the mother, talking to her daughter?

11. Max’s wife, within the group, his strong support, the doctors?

12. The lady hearing the voice on the phone, euthanasia, not succeeding?

13. The funeral, everybody grieving, with their secret? The singing of the song together?

14. The man in the cemetery, upset, wanting help? The news of the murder-suicide?

15. The different generations, Yehezkel with his grandchild, love, the kiss? The daughter, her concern, her mother’s illness, revealing the secret to her daughter and her daughter's opposition?

16. Levana, illness, the dementia and its increasing, the collapse, being revived and the ambulance man's comment that she might almost have died? Her agreeing to the procedure, the video?

17. Audience interest in the theme, audience sympathies with the people? Empathising with the person suffered? Religious issues? Moral issues?