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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Entertainment
Luke Buckmaster

Man on Earth review – a beautifully humane documentary about a dying man’s last days

Bob Rosenzweig
Bob Rosenzweig, a 65-year-old American who decides to end his life through assisted dying, is the subject of Man on Earth. Photograph: Sydney film festival

There are lots of literal grey areas in the Australian film-maker Amiel Courtin-Wilson’s very compelling and heart-rending documentary about the final week of Bob Rosenzweig, a 65-year-old Jewish man living in Washington who has Parkinson’s disease and decides to end his life through assisted dying. From the opening shot Courtin-Wilson draws a stony overcast aesthetic, beginning with an ambiguous image of what seems to resemble a foggy, ashen skyline before a vague human outline emerges. Later there are shots of misty skylines and bodies of water more cement-coloured than blue; it’s as if the world around Rosenzweig is greying before his eyes, easing him through his last days.

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