Still Life (M). Director: Uberto Pasolini. Starring: Eddie Marsan, Joanne Froggatt. 92 minutes
Some years ago my then next-door neighbour attempted suicide. He'd recently separated from his partner, who had moved out with their three children. His teenage son showed up unexpectedly one day to find his father hanging in the garage. To my shame I dismissed the boy's shouts for the sounds of adolescent roughhousing — they'd always been noisy kids. Luckily, another neighbour was more alert. Had he not come to the rescue — and if not for the fortuity of the son's arrival in the first place — the incident would have had a tragic outcome.
For an individual to die alone at home amid the crowd of suburbia is one of the sadder, and sadly common, scenarios of modern Western existence. Italian-born British filmmaker Pasolini explores this phenomenon in Still Life — a sweet and thoughtful examination of alienation and loneliness. Its hero John (Marsan), a council worker who looks for the relatives of those found dead and alone. Frequently his investigations are fruitless. Next-of-kin, if they can be located, prove to be relieved or indifferent to hear of the death of an estranged parent.
This is not merely work for John. He approaches the task with a strong sense of personal responsibility to the deceased. He writes elegant eulogies based on whatever biographical scraps he can piece together, attends their funerals as the sole witness, and reverently scatters their ashes in a park. He has a deep affection for these posthumous rituals; has in fact already purchased his own cemetery 'plot-with-a-view', and is in the habit of lying on that patch of grass, smiling at the sky from the very place where his remains will rest for eternity.
Pointedly, John, too, is one of 'the lonely'. He lives a simple, friendless existence in a sparse apartment. We see him prepare a meal, consisting of a single piece of toast and a tin of tuna scrupulously turned-out onto a plate, and arranged methodically on a table built for one. Marsan is a wonderful character actor appearing here in a rare leading role; in stillness and silence he imbues John with a palpable sense of loneliness. This is the root of John's empathy towards, for example, a dead woman so lonely that she wrote letters to herself from her cat.
But his methods breed conflict with a new manager, who demands a ruthless