AllMovie

Hungarian experimental filmmaker Péter Forgács spent much of his career idiosyncratically, compiling historical documentaries out of "found" footage shot between 1930 and 1950. Forgács's unique combination of elements - including voiceover, added music and sounds, and self-imposed narrative structures - enabled him to offer different "spins" on well-known historical periods, filtered through the eyes of men and women who lived through those eras. The director's Own Death constitutes a dramatic break from this pattern; Forgács's premier fiction film, adapted from Hungarian belletrist Péter Nádas's novella of the same title, it relies on found footage to establish background and atmosphere, but utilizes newly shot film for the bulk of its central narrative. Like its source material, the film meditates on the experience of an ordinary man who has a near-fatal heart attack and briefly walks the dividing line between life and death; while the novel meditates on the nature of this experience via extensive personal insights and recollections, in the film Forgács meditates on many of the same ideas via the extensive use of evocative imagery. Through it all, Forgács conveys the central idea that an untimely death constitutes a horrid tragedy because it stands in the way of continued life and accomplishments.