In an acclaimed trilogy of autobiographical short films, of which Death And Transfiguration is the final installment, Terence Davies created an alter ego whose life the films followed in childhood and middle age, and, most audaciously, speculated on the manner in which he would die. Named for Richard Strauss’s work depicting the death of an artist, it sees this character of Tucker (Wilfred Brambell) recalling the death of his mother while facing his own end. While the film is beautiful and lyrical, the lonely death Davies imagines for himself is ineffably sad as Tucker reaches what Ernest Dowson referred to as “the end of every song man sings.” 

The existential anxieties faced by Tucker in extremis take on different weight in Sławomir Fabiski’s Anxiety. Here, questions are raised about the degree to which we have ownership of our own lives, and the right and autonomy we have to choose the time and manner of our own demise, should we wish.  

Małgorzata (Magdalena Cielecka) and her younger sister Łucja (Marta Nieradkiewicz) are on a road trip to Switzerland. At the end of the journey, the terminally ill Małgorzata will undergo an assisted suicide. Łucja is determined to use their time together to persuade her sister to hold on to life and to seek out new treatment options. While the former has always been career-minded, the latter takes her joy in her family. Even as the two draw closer over the course of their trip, reminiscing over their shared childhood and beset by funny and unusual events, Małgorzata remains determined to end her life on her own terms. 

The issues raised by Fabicki’s film are contentious, no doubt, but they are handled here with tact and restraint. Whether alone, as in Davies’s film, or surrounded by family, questions of agency on end-of-life decisions continue to be worthy of discussion, and deservedly so. 

Notes by Kevin Coyne.

Screening as part of our season This Mortal Coil.

DEATH AND TRANSFIGURATION (Dir. Terence Davies): 26 minutes. U.K., 1983. Black & White. Digital. 

ANXIETY / LEK (Dir. Sławomir Fabicki): 96 minutes. Poland-Germany-Switzerland, 2023. Subtitled. Digital.