“The Farewell Party,” an Israeli comedy about euthanasia,
steers a careful course between humor and pathos while playing down overtly
political and religious arguments for and against assisted suicide. The first
feature of its creative team, Tal Granit and Sharon Maymon, “The Farewell
Party,” which won them an Ophir Award (the Israeli Oscar) for best direction,
is set in a Jerusalem retirement home in which one resident, an amateur inventor,
devises a “mercy-killing machine.” News of the device leaks to the home’s other
residents. That inventor, Yehezkel, a robust bear of a man (Ze’ev Revah) and
his wife, Levana (Levana Finkelshtein), a couple in their 70s, are distressed
by the acute suffering of their friend Max (Shmuel Wolf), who is dying of
cancer and against his will is kept alive by doctors. Max’s wife, Yana (Aliza
Rozen), entreats Yehezkel to assist Max, however he can, in ending his agony.
I have not seen this yet.
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