International Competition

Jay Rosenblatt’s new documentary is all about suicide. Suicide as a way out of a senseless life; suicide as the result of deep depression; suicide as an inexplicable bolt from the blue. The technique he uses is a familiar one: a collage of black-and-white found footage accompanied by a subtle soundtrack and voice-over. In this case, the voice-over is a male voice reading aloud poignant excerpts from the diary of a depressed man: ‘I do not fear death. I fear the empty hours of life that would otherwise lie ahead. A life that seems to me the worst fate for a person on this earth.’ These diary excerpts alternate with a female voice, which provides a historical perspective on the phenomenon of suicide that runs parallel to the images. She talks about depression, harakiri, about who was the first person to jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. She relates how Ernest Hemingway committed suicide, followed by four members of his family. She tells us how a fatal leap by a Japanese girl into a volcano in Oshima signaled both a new trend and the birth of a tourist destination.