Still Life

A film set in London. John May works for a council. His job is strange and real: arranging funerals for people who died alone. He enters their flats, looks through their belongings, searches for relatives, and if he finds none he holds the service himself. He takes the work seriously. He chooses music that suits the person's life, writes a short address, and is the only one at the service. His own life is as quiet: the same meal, the same hour, the same flat. One day he is made redundant. The unit is closing, the work is being merged, and he has one file left: a man who died across the street from his own building. From there the film becomes an investigation. John travels the country; he finds the man's old friends, his workplace, a fellow prisoner and his daughter. Each meeting adds another piece. What the narrative is interested in is not death but record: the film asks what a person leaves behind and who will gather it. The ending takes a turn and will not be written here; in its last minutes the narrative changes its whole tone. The image is fixed and symmetrical; the camera hardly moves, and the choice is tied to the character's order. Eddie Marsan plays John and the film rests entirely on him. Joanne Froggatt is in the cast. Uberto Pasolini wrote and directed. The film won a prize at Venice. Who it is for: anyone who likes quiet British drama with little dialogue. Who it is not for: anyone looking for pace; the narrative is very slow and deliberately repetitive.