Documentary Synopsis
Mademoiselle and the Doctor is the
new documentary from Australian Academy award-nominated
filmmaker, Janine Hosking.
While the film started
off as a cinematic exploration of the workshops
of Dr Philip Nitschke it soon changed focus to
incorporate the intriguing and deeply moving story
of Lisettte Nigot.
Ms Nigot is a French academic from
Perth. She is 79 years old, healthy but does not want to
turn 80.
Mademoiselle and the Doctor examines
Lisette’s decision to take her own life
“I’ve had enough, that really is the
only thing” as well as her relationship
with Dr Nitschke who says “I encouraged
her to suicide no more than I encouraged her not
to take her own life. It was her decision.”
This provocative documentary asks us if elderly, rational adults have a right
to determine the time and place of their own passing.
Lisette Nigot said she had lived
enough life. Dr Nitschke asks "who was I to tell her otherwise?
She was not depressed. To the contrary, she was an intriguing,
enchanting woman and while it saddened me greatly when
she decided to leave, her suicide was her decision and her right.”
To view a clip from the film –
click
here
Recent Film Review
MADEMOISELLE AND THE DOCTOR (M)
Adrian Martin - Reviewer (The Age, December 2
2004)
AMID the public arguments over the
quality of Somersault, the display of pride over
Harvie Krumpet's Oscar, and the recent fizzle
of both AFI and IF awards ceremonies, the best
Australian film of the year has managed to sneak
under just about every radar.
Janine Hosking's Mademoiselle and
the Doctor is a documentary, but it is not in
any of the non-fiction modes that are currently
fashionable. It is not an aggressive, finger-pointing
essay in the Michael Moore style. It is not a
hyper-stylised ''dramatic recreation'' in the
vein of Errol Morris. Nor does it strain to tell
a heartwarming story with loveable characters,
like so many contemporary documentaries eager
to fit a television format.
If anything, the film fits into
the more old-fashioned genre of the ''observational''
documentary, close to Nicholas Philbert's To Be
and to Have. It takes its time, and risks a structure
that demands strict attention from viewers.
Hosking traces the parallel paths
of two people. The doctor of the title is the
controversial euthanasia campaigner, Dr Philip
Nitschke. The mademoiselle is a 79-year-old Perth
resident, Lisette Nigot. She plans to end her
life, and in doing so she will make use of advice
from Nitschke. The film gently takes us to the
occasion of their meeting and its aftermath.
This is a restrained, matter-of-fact,
sometimes surprisingly humorous document. It avoids
sensationalism and refuses to get hysterically
worked up over its hot, divisive topic of assisted
death.
In many ways, the film takes its
cue from Nigot, a remarkable woman who talks candidly
and tactfully about her splendid life. Her reasoning
for wanting to end it all is simple and plaintive:
she has achieved everything she intended to, and
wants to die before the inevitable deterioration
of mind and body. She answers the filmmaker's
questions about her wish to die with disarming
directness: ''Do I look depressed?''
Nitschke, on the other hand, is
a man who can come over as cold and brusque. He
is shown embroiled in the everyday tasks of his
vocation, such as pulling over during a long drive
to conduct an international radio interview on
his mobile phone, or (in a wonderfully daggy sequence)
testing the prototype of his death-assistance
machine.
There is something a little comical
about him. But, once more, the film takes its
cue from Nitschke's own understatement, his unostentatious
commitment to a profoundly humanist, compassionate
cause.
There is something about the rhythm,
the attitude, the balance of bemusement and stoicism
in this film that is profoundly Australian. No
other country or culture could have produced such
a documentary with exactly this tone. In all the
strenuous and sometimes spurious debate over the
need to ''tell our own stories in our own voices'',
this movie nails both a uniquely local story and
a uniquely local way of conveying it.
Mademoiselle and the Doctor is a
beautifully constructed piece of cinema, with
a cumulative emotional effect that is rare in
Australian film. I can only speculate that the
reason it has not, to date, been more grandly
embraced and acclaimed by the local industry is
because of the intense discomfort inherent in
the subject it broaches, and its refusal to indulge
in facile moralising.
But great films invite us to ponder
uncomfortable thoughts, and take us to places
where, on first blush, we might rather not go.
By this criterion, Mademoiselle and the Doctor is indeed a great Australian film.
In Competition
Mademoiselle and the Doctor was
selected for competition at the:
FIPA Festival - Paris - January 2005
Melbourne Film Festival – July 2004
Silverdocs Film Festival – Washington DC – June 2004
Sydney Film Festival (World Premiere) – June 2004
Amsterdam International
Documentary Film Festival – November 2003
Australian Dates
Mademoiselle has recently screened
at cinemas in Adelaide (Mercury), Darwin (Deckchair) and Melbourne (Nova).
TV Screening
ABC TV screened a 55 minute version of the
documentary on 5 June 2005 which was cut further before it aired because of "moral" objections by the presenter of ABC TV's religious/ ethics program - Compass - Geraldine Doogue.
Film maker Janine Hosking was given no opportunity to veto this last minute editorial decision within the ABC ...
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