End Game

Wonderful job filming the reality with patients and one family in particular. The doctor talks about how he had to face grief himself in his own body, and this gave him the strength and the inspiration to help other human beings look at this huge mystery, to look at the "end (of the) game", the end of life itself. A gem of documentary showing vulnerability as the ultimate strength.

Over the years, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman have made documentaries usually focusing on LGBT topics (Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, The Celluloid Closet, State of Pride, etc)*. With the Academy Award-nominated "End Game", they look at a different topic: death. This production focuses on palliative care, forcing the viewer to think differently about death. After all, it's a topic that we try to avoid, but it will eventually happen to every one of us.

Serious but calm, the documentary is one that every person should see.

*Without Friedman, Epstein directed "The Times of Harvey Milk", a documentary about the assassinated gay politician.

This film puts you right in the middle of 4 people's passage to death. I found it an excruciating experience because I couldn't disconnect from seeing myself or my family caught in the same inevitable journey. That is good filmmaking. The closer you are to this future reality the more poignant and intimate. Nominated for an Oscar, this film is well made. I give this film a 7 (gripping) out of 10. {Documentary on dying}

This documentary packs a powerful blow in unmasking death. I've sat through two hospices deaths: my aunt and my dad. I found going to and from the hospice's incredibly difficult. Being with my dying loved ones wasn't, but the trip to them felt like a sledge hammer was hitting my heart. It was a relief to let both go, even though at the time I didn't feel that. I felt as we all do a desperate clinging to have them back if only for seconds. Since I've found peace to accept memories are all I have left - and that is enough. Hoping for miracles carries a heavy emotional price-tag thats not easy to put into words or even pictures - but this documentary does a superb job.

Treasure life. It always feels like its gone too quickly.

While this takes you on the edge of a second hand experience of death... I know for most people, such kind of support system (both medical and family) is hard to get....

Death is a larger (more definitive) truth than birth... and it's more difficult to comprehend for those who are left behind compared to those who "experience" it,,,

While different relations may perceive it differently, the question that remains is who/what died?

Anyways... highly recommended for people of all backgrounds irrespective of age, sex/gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, educational status and religious/non-religious/scientific beliefs...