The Farewell Party

In the past two decades the Israeli cinema improved significantly and some excellent movies were produced. The present movies can be rated at the highest end!

I laughed, I cried, I loved this film. Old people in a retirement home face illness and dementia every day.

"The Farewell Party" starts as a tragi-comedy in a retirement pension where the question of euthanasia is first raised then addressed. As the movie progresses the tragic dimension becomes more and more apparent, as minds and bodies decay, requests for a dignified death grow and "survivors" are left sadder.

The Israeli movie Mita Tova was shown in the U.S.

A woman in a retirement home answers a telephone ringing in the hallway. The caller pretends to be God and asks the terminally-ill woman to continue her difficult medical treatments.

There are not many films that will make me ponder about my mortality. Sitting in the old- school cinema of The Projector last night, I think only Departures (2008) made me do that.

It's not your everyday hero VS villain type of film, it's different, and it's probably not for everyone. It's hard to watch, both because of the delicate nature of the subject it's about and because most of the characters are hard to fall for, but once you manage to ignore it, you're in for a treat.