Still Life

source: Still Life

This is no film with crashing soundtracks, wild rides and fast dialogue. But it still packs a punch. Tremendously moving look at lonely lives and people who are left with no one, during, and at the end of life. How one solitary man can care for those who have died and have no one there for them at the end, makes for quiet watching. Yet, as this very cleverly constructed movie takes you forward, you are drawn and tugged by his silent, heroic dedication and caring. And it goes quite a way beyond the call of his job. The very end is extremely touching and wonderfully moving.

Truly moving and compassionate story of a quiet, lonely, and friendless public servant in London, daily laboring diligently in a thankless job that few would want, but he did it so well that his efforts might be called almost "heavenly". To him, his job was important to the point of critical accuracy in documentation, and was much more to him than mere service, it was a passion approaching art. It was his life to sort what remained to be done for those who had died without friends, relatives or anyone who might want or care to know. In that chore he was a Rembrandt, as he was just like those forgotten, meaningless people for whom he tried so hard to give at least some final care. To him, even if not to others, they were worthy. Whether out and about trying to connect the dots of a deceased person's past, or compiling the found details of same in a little storeroom office, cloistered away every day he carried on, trying to give some level of final dignity to those who may never have had any in life. A proper church funeral, with only him attending, was his way of sending them off with someone looking on, someone knowing and caring that they had lived but were now gone. This story was very small, as it had to be, and it was perfectly told and acted, with the great Eddie Marsan as the public servant and Joanne Froggatt in a small role as a deceased man's daughter. An excellent and fitting musical score accompanied. The ending was surprising, but as rewarding as an ending could be for a man such as he. Although unrealized to fruition, he did finally find a friend who cared to know him. And, there were others. You will not have a dry eye when you leave the theatre, but I trust that you will have a better heart for it.

Loved this film until the bus accident, I couldn't take it seriously after that. A bus knocks somebody down and kills them in the UK for every 27 million miles travelled. How likely is it that somebody as meticulous as John May would be standing there at the time? 66% of people in the UK don't believe in ghosts, so like me they won't buy into the final scene. Take the ghosts away and all you are left with is a cruel irony, a lonely man spends his life trying to get people to care enough to go to the funerals of other socially isolated people who died alone, probably because of his fear of this happening to him, and then nobody goes to his. I watched a beautifully acted, nuanced, poignant film for 1 hour 20 minutes followed by a load of rubbish for the last 10 minutes. Don't think I've ever been so disappointed by the ending of a film.

I never write reviews about a film but couldn't help but leaving a review of this one. I started watching this film thinking it would be a comedy, after all, the subject matter of the film made me think that comedy would be a must in order to keep the audience watching. It took no more than ten minutes for me to understand that the film was much more than a simple comedy. The main character (really the only true character in the film), Eadie Marsan is amazing. Here is a man that has devoted his entire professional career trying to find any living person or persons that could be linked to those who have died in the council area he works for. All of these people have died alone. No family or friends. No one ever turning up at the funeral. He has faced failure after failure in trying to arrange one case where people have actually been found, or after having been found, have been willing to turn up for the funeral. Then his last case, after he has been informed that he is to lose his job due to council spending cuts, turns into a quest. A quest, I think, more for his own peace of mind than anything else. I don't want to give anything away but the last ten minutes are very moving. This man, so ordinary yet so immaculate and organized in his work suddenly finds something more. Anyway, please don't give up on the film as it is a fascinating (at least I found it to be) analysis of life & death.

The movie is super boring. It has very little story and it is not exciting.

It is not often I would give a movie 10 out of 10 but this one really deserves the rating. A movie that seemingly starts off as a rather ordinary piece of work becomes a truly fascinating insight into an aspect of life we all miss because it occurs under our noses. An ordinary man is not an ordinary man at all. He is a very dedicated public servant attending to an aspect of life that we are seldom aware of, always sympathetic toward when it is brought to our attention, but generally ignored on the whole. This movie totally gripped me. It fascinated me in terms of what some people do to keep our lives orderly and it raised my feelings of compassion toward the "faceless" people doing seemingly ordinary housekeeping jobs. The development of the principal character, the job, and also the extent to which many, many other "faceless" or unseen people become involved was a masterpiece of scripting and acting. Underneath all this was a soundtrack to die for. Probably not a soundtrack you would buy to listen to, but one that matched the movie and its moods at a level seldom found in any cinematic offering. The story development and the ending were tremendous and the surprise ending (which is not a surprise if you pay attention to all the nuances and subtleties of the script and acting) blew me away. I cannot recommend this movie highly enough.

This is my first-ever review on IMDb (and my first movie review as well), but while watching this superb gem of cinematography I couldn't help but think that it deserved the effort. I will not go into details as for the plot, which is quite simple and linear, yet very peculiar. The movie is about the everyday life of John May, who works for his borough council in a very special function, as he arranges funerals for people who died alone and in the meanwhile he tries to track down any relatives or friends who may want to come to the funeral. I was intrigued by the movie as soon as I read about it, but it went way over my expectations. The plot is perfectly structured around the main character, each and every scene is deeply evocative and, even if dialogues are very short and rare, the slow pace of the movie doesn't make it boring at all. But what makes this movie a valid 10 out of 10 rating is the bittersweet ending, that I found very touching and communicates a strong message of hope irrespective of the tragic setting. This shows how directors can make a great movie without forcing viewers to a 3-hour marathon of twisting plots or leaving them with a sense of unfinished business with ambiguous endings. In conclusion, I recommend this movie to anyone who wants to enjoy a short, but poignant reflection on loneliness and human bonding.

Inherent in the very title of the film Still Life lies its biggest challenge – how to convey a sense of stillness in a medium that by its very name is supposed to, yes, move. And yet, Uberto Pasolini, who wrote and directed Still Life, rivals the Flemish masters of old. What a triumph. What layers of plot intertwined with those images to tell the story of a man who will break your heart a thousand times in each still life moment he creates in his very, very, very deliberate life. I am grateful to have seen this movie. I named some of the still life images that were seared in my mind. Man in Kitchen with Plate on Drainboard. Man at Bus Stop… Alone. Safe Office Prison. Happy Death. Train Ride with Meat Pie. They go on and on. Two Drunks on Steps. Each and every scene is a moving still life that speaks to a life of safe deliberation that turns to moving outside the net of safety, that is punishable by death. We all know the dangers of leaving safe plodding behind. Those moments outside the box of life's monotony will be worth it in the end – and they were. The acting is perfection. I'm sure even Lucian Freud would want to paint the actors Pasolini gathered for this film. How can we thank Eddie Marsan for bringing Mr. May to life with such dignity, charm and humor? Does he utter more than fifty words in the entire film? I don't think so, and yet, I heard his voice through the entire showing. And, Joanne Froggatt, (yes, from Downton Abbey), gifts us with a portrayal of Kelly Stoke that is the perfect answer to Marsan's May. I have to confess when I went to the film I didn't realize that Pasolini was the producer of The Full Monty, The Emperor's New Clothes, and The Closer You Get. Producer? No way. Stick with writing and directing, sir. You are surely one of the best in the business. Death will come to us all. It is our hope that we never die alone, with no one to celebrate our lives afterward. In fact, few of us think about those that do die without anyone to put them to rest. Still Life will change a lot of things for you if you can take it in as if it were a museum tour of a great exhibit. I think it's a 'see it more than once' film for sure. And yes, forgive the pun, it is an incredibly moving experience. This might be The Hampton Film Festival's best sleeper this year. Congratulations. Oh, and thank you.

OMG, this was one of the saddest, most depressing movies I've ever seen. That's not to say that it wasn't a good movie, or even that I didn't like it, but this movie is definitely not for everyone. John May is a nebbish, a cipher, an anonymous clerk in a ministry office whose job it is to settle the affairs of those poor souls who die without family or anyone to see them off to the great hereafter. I suppose his job might be considered to be the equivalent of the American public administrator. But John goes beyond the bare necessities of his job. If he is unable to track down any family members of the deceased, he sees to it himself that the deceased has a decent funeral and burial, even if that means that he and he alone is in attendance at the service. And if no family is found, John makes that individual part of his own (seemingly non-existent) family, painstakingly and reverentially placing photographs of the deceased in his own family album. Seeing John in his daily life I could not help but call to mind Henry David Thoreau's famous quote to the effect that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." John May personifies that quote. We see him every day at work in the same drab office, and then going home to the same drab house and eating the same drab meal. His only interactions are with those in his job capacity, as there are no family members of friends in sight. He is quite well on the way to becoming one of the lost individuals he himself serves on the job. He is a male Eleanor Rigby. After John is terminated from his position (for being too "slow" and "inefficient") and things begin to look even bleaker for him, there is one ambiguous scene where it appears that he may even be contemplating suicide. Toward the end of the film, one of his cases brings him together with a possible love interest and John – someone who appears never to have taken a chance or risk in his life – reaches out his hand (and his heart) and tries to forge a connection with this person. But just when it looks like his life may turn around for him…..Wham! Well, I won't give away the ending, but there is one scene that literally made me gasp "Oh no!". I saw life in this movie: the absurdity and unfairness of life. It certainly does not present an optimistic point of view. And if you're looking for a happy ending, this is not the movie for you. Although this is a quiet, slow -some (not I) might even say boring - movie, the final scene brought everything to a head, calling to mind the final scenes in both "Titanic" and "Schindler's List." Extremely moving. Extremely poignant. Bring your hankies, folks.