A Necessary Death

Gilbert Toma (G.J. Echternkamp) is a film student looking to make a documentary on a suicidal person. It's an indie with indie budget. So we have to account for that. Even with that in mind, this is still a slow moving film. The only hope is to pretend that this is real. At least that would allow for some tension to seep thru.

But it's obvious that it's not. I've seen enough of these faux-docs. It rambles on in that kind of videotape footages. The people slowly and methodically do their documentary and talk about their documentary. It's not that compelling. The last 30 minutes has some interesting developments. I don't recommend this movie, but if you watch it, you might as well stay until the end.

Listed as a documentary on Netflix. It is a work of fiction, so not at all a documentary. Blurring facts with fiction should be discouraged not glorified, especially now when everything is touted as fake. Films such as this should be clearly identified as mockumentaries. Acting is poor. If you watch, go in knowing it is a drama pretending to be a documentary.

A short premise is a film crew are making a documentary about suicide, and they are following someone around, documenting the persons final days being alive, showing how this person lives, getting to know the person, the persons family, reasons why, etc. All up until their final act, suicide. The film is made as a 'found footage' film, or made to look as real as possible.

I think there were some 'twists' added into the flow of the story that weren't needed. Ones that made it seem as more of a 'theatrical' story. Some of them were a bit mediocre, and just in my opinion, could have been left out to make the film flow a bit better.

The one thing that really threw my train of thought off, was the ending. I won't spoil the ending they used, and please don't look up detailed info on the film if you are planning on seeing it/buying it. But the ending they used in the final cut of the film, was unnecessary and was again, a bit 'theatrical', which put me off, and my reaction would have been a lot better if they hadn't used it. It took away from the 'real' feeling the film is supposed to give. I say this because, on the DVD, there is an alternate ending. The alternate ending should have been the final ending of the film, not the one they used. The alternate ending made a much better end to the story and film, and made much more sense.

Overall, I do recommend seeing this, just don't read too much on it, some things may get a bit ruined if you do.

Saw this movie in Calagary and it just made me mad that you can have all the talent in the world but if you have no money it's almost impossible to get your work seen. Take "A Necessary Death" for example. These guys have worked on this movie for three years (probably for very little or no money) and have created something that they can confidently show to anyone, while other movies are made for millions and are an embarrassment! I believe they are showing it at AFI next month so I am hoping something happens for them as I will definitely be taking my friends to see it if it ever gets released. These are the type of movies that inspire young film makers to try harder because it proves that if you have what it takes you can create wonderful work with very little resources. And to think I wasn't even meant to see this movie during the festival. I just liked the name!!!

I don't want to say much because I really want people to watch it for themselves first. I just have to say I thought this was a fantastic piece of work and whilst a lot of people may say that this is bad taste, I think it's very honest and I respect that.

I'm not easily stunned or speechless but this film is an exception and addresses some very important topics that really need to be discussed more openly in this world. Maybe then, it would be understood much more. I would advise anyone wanting to watch this to help them deal with the topic surrounding this film, that it may not perhaps be ideal for some but may be for others. Everyone comes away with a different opinion .