Assuming you were terminally ill and suffering. Would you fight and suffer until the end or turn to medically assisted in dying (MAID)?
Sixty-year-old Chika Kapadia is in the last stages of an aggressive terminal cancer. He has requested his long-time friend and filmmaker Shonali Bose to film him in Geneva to the point he ingests “the final dose” and his head drops and he quietly dies. Reluctantly Bose agrees.
A date is set for “the big sleep” at Dignitas in Geneva that performs MAID. And the countdown begins. Dignitas permits non residents of Switzerland to avail themselves of MAID.
Chika appears robust, is walking, chatting away and seemingly in good spirits. He is a likeable chap, a former electrical engineer, stand up comedian and beach bum. Are we missing something here or is Chika Captain Courageous?
Each day that passes you’ll see brief handwritten notes on the screen from Chika revealing his thoughts about his impending death and MAID. Pay attention.
A titanic struggle ensues between Chika, Bose and Chika’s family. Initially the family is on board with the filming but how far the film should go is in dispute. To the final bitter end (and the “final prescription” is bitter). Or should it cease when the final dose is swallowed and before his head drops signaling unconsciousness or somewhere in between or perhaps not at all. Will Chika take this final road? How does this effect the longstanding friendship between Bose and Chika?
At one point Chika, heavily involved in directing the director Bose as to the various shots to be taken, instructs her to be “a fly on the wall” meaning remain still and leave after he takes the final dose. Bose has difficulties processing her role as friend and that of filmmaker.
As time ticks on as a viewer you may have conflicting points of view. Do it and God bless! NO as he looks as if he has remaining vitality!
Can Bose finish her “production”?
This story becomes intense veering between realistic and surreal.
The day arrives, a day that Chika had cancelled previously.
Can he go through with it? How far in filming can Bose go if he does.
Disturbing, tense, surreal, graphic, ghoulish, immoral, of poor taste, sensational, didactic, cruel or rattling. Take your choice(s).
Flies on walls are often fly swatted. As a viewer you are the fly here whether you want to be or not. At any point you can fly away.
This 82-minute Indian documentary was filmed by Shonali Bose and Nilesh Maniyar.
RKS 2025 Documentary Film Rating 82/100.
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