Review of How to Die in Oregon (2011) by Alex W — 24 Jul 2011

How To Die In Oregon is a gripping documentary about the everyday mental trails of people dealing with legalized physician-assisted suicide. The documentary doesn't necessarily focus on the issue of assisted suicide directly. However, it tells both sides of the debate (or at least tries to) through first hand accounts of the issue.

For me there were some flaws. For starters the edit seems completely linier because at the beginning you are with a social worker and then start jumping around person to person until we come across the women. The woman that when we first lay eyes on her, we as an audience know she is going to be the most important key to unlocking this film.

It's no wonder that these problems of focus and confusion arose within the edit; the editor is the same person who directed the film. Sometimes it's a good idea to edit your own work; in this case it was a bad one. How To Die In Oregon felt just as much a documentary about self-discovery from an unknown filmmaker as it did about the issue itself. There were times where I was thinking this doesn't work and the next scene that character is dropped. The process of making the film shouldn't have been so obvious. Centering on the one female character that interested me as well as the filmmaker the most would have been more then satisfying.

Besides the editing choices this film tries to be more then it ever will be. Grabbing interviews for the other side of the issue and trying to present a compelling discussion of the topic. This fails miserably as the other side (The side not dying) doesn't care passionately enough to bring the other side of the argument to the table. It's not the filmmaker's fault for trying; it is his fault for letting us know that he was trying and failed.

Trust me I am not bashing this film at all. I am speaking in a harsh undertone to the things I didn't like because overall I did like this movie and I just thought it could have been portrayed better.

The filmmakers thought long and extra hard about the tone of this film and most wont appreciate it. It's long, drawn out, bland and sometimes but only sometimes mysterious. This was intentional or at least I hope it was intentional, the grasping of life through these borderline lifeless characters that are getting weaker and weaker every day is something that needs to be expressed with ease and precaution. One wrong upbeat move and this documentary turns into a propaganda film with a completely different agenda. However, this film never makes that wrong move. It stays true to itself and creates a mood all its own.

I haven't seen a documentary in a long time with no narration or focus view point that really grabbed my attention. My attitude with documentaries has always been "What do you want? Tell me and make me want what you want, now!" I have to say this film completely opened my eyes to a new world. A world where documentary can just be documenting events and within the interest of the audience they will take away a new understanding of the topic.

How To Die In Oregon never told me what to think but rather let me understand the topic and make my own choice.

Lets break it down. How To Die In Oregon is a special little treat and a compelling documentary that I would be pleasantly surprised to see get an oscar nom. A mans first take at filmmaking doing it all by himself leaves some flaws but all can be forgotten by the end of the film as the story is much greater then the editing will ever be.

The editing for this film is trash, but How To Die In Oregon is pretty damn good.

8/10.