Question of life and death

A TV documentary looks at the terrible dilemmas families often face when loved ones enter their final days, Wang Qian reports.

A beloved relative is facing the end of her journey. Crucial decisions have to be made at the most emotionally charged moment. The patient is in an intensive care unit. The soft whoosh of lifesaving devices provides a monotonous soundtrack. The members of a particular family are meeting in Luoyang, Henan province, to deal with this heart-wrenching scenario.

Their dilemma, familiar to many families, is recorded unedited in the one-shot documentary, The Choice, directed by Gu Xue. The discussion lasts 65 minutes with the camera slowly turning left or right to focus on the speakers or listeners at the gathering.

The patient is the family's fifth aunt. And the question is simple yet fraught with anxiety and angst. It centers on whether to take the 54-year-old woman home or let her stay in hospital. The conversation involves more than 10 family members spanning two generations. Her son, Shi Hengbo, who is still in college, is present. There is little chance of recovery but the question, when to say the final goodbye, requires an urgent answer, both for financial and practical reasons.

"The discussion is quite familiar and the moment I was there, I decided to record it," Gu, 33, says. "It is a question that I have no answer to. Nor does the movie provide one."

As the film's title, The Choice, indicates, it is a question facing every one: If it is you in hospital, what is your choice? If it is your beloved in hospital, what is your choice?

The documentary, with no voice-over, premiered in the international section at the 42nd Cinema du Reel Film Festival in Paris in March 2020. It won the "emerging international filmmaker "award at the Open City Documentary Festival in London in September and was shown at the Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival in December. The film was screened on DocYard, an award-winning film and discussion series at the Brattle Theater in the US state of Massachusetts from March 26 to April 1.

Gu says what makes the movie special is that it provides a "different perspective to look at family relationships".

Wu Wenguang, a longtime documentary filmmaker, says: "In one go, a door to the inner part of a family is open to the audience."

Inge Coolsaet from Point of View, a Canadian magazine that covers documentaries and independent films, writes: "With bare simplicity, the film captures the essence of this familial drama. Observing the family meeting across gender, generations and class in one single take, Gu opts for clarity, directness and transparency."

According to DocYard, The Choice "powerfully reduces cinema down to its simplest form in order to reveal the complexity of life".

Gu says she is happy that the film has made people reflect on their own family. Most people will face the life-and-death conversation concerning their beloved one day, but before that moment comes, death is not exactly a frequent topic of family discussions around the dinner table.

"Through the communication with the audiences, my understanding of the film has expanded. The interactive part makes me thrilled," Gu says.