Late Last Flight Home, Ondi Timoner Heartbreaking documentary about her father over the past two weeks The director and her sister Rachel sit next to their father Eli as he confesses to what he considers his greatest sin. He finds memories from decades ago, dusts them off, and puts them in front of his daughters. Rabbi Rachel, in charge of spiritual comfort, quietly brings Eli back to old wounds and past humiliations. Timona had a hard time testifying. Just as her instinct to regroup begins, her sister stops her. “Practice is not about giving him narratives. Practice is taking from him his feelings about his own inadequacies,” Rachel said. “Not to make it better.”
How unforgettable these words are. It’s too real. The urge to recount the lives of those we love is a great one. We extract meaning from our memories and use them as evidence of our love. We hope these new, different stories — stories about the value of someone’s life and how it affects us — can bridge the gap between how they see themselves and how we feel about them. We pray, perhaps a little selfishly, that it will make saying goodbye a little easier. But it wasn’t — not really — that Timona’s intimacy project rippled with evidence of this tension. Her films are a gentle observation of death and an exercise in anticipatory grief.
One last time home
Bottom Line A thoughtful and painful farewell.
Release Date: Friday October 2021 Director: Ondi Timoner
1 hour 50 minutes
when she His father was elderly at the time of filming 10 and decided to take his own life in 28, Timona and the rest of her family were surprised. Their shock and wary support is recorded at the beginning of Last Flight Home , guiding viewers financially through Eli’s struggles. His early 50 stroke paralyzed the left side of his body. He was forced to resign from the airline he founded, his finances plummeted, and although he approached it with grace, his life went through 180 – degree shift.
The coronavirus pandemic started at This made the older Eli even more Keenly aware of daily challenges. He was prone to falls due to difficulty walking alone and was taken to hospital with breathing difficulties. Just before his family discussed placing him in a nursing home for full-time care, Eli told the director he wanted to take his own life. California is one of the few states in the United States that authorizes medical assistance. This lengthy process requires the individual to ask three times and talk to two doctors before they can be prescribed a concoction of drugs that can slow the heart rate to death.
Timoner documented the entire process in an affectionate and sober manner. Last Flight Home consists of a series of images – home videos, recorded Zoom and FaceTime calls with family and friends, photos of her father over the years and the director’s -day process. The visuals may lack aesthetic cohesion, but they were deemed sufficient to achieve the project’s goal of presenting death as a ritual – a process that envelops members of the community. Timona doesn’t ignore the details, it’s a gift in a country and culture that pretends the dead and dying don’t exist. She filmed a medical team and Eli’s home care aide lifting him from a wheelchair to a bed in his living room; she filmed him struggling to hold objects with weak, varicose hands; she filmed him Conversations with family members, jokes and life advice. These meetings define Eli’s personality and who he is as a person.
Time makes up the film, when Timona officially begins – Day countdown clock. Title Card – 10, 10, 5, 3 — briefly interrupt the narrative, adjusting our feelings like a score. In the personal Eli Timoner, every day is a lesson. We learn about his early years as an Air Florida executive, how he lost his wealth and company after a stroke, and how the lack of disability legislation left him unprotected. With each new challenge, the shame grows with Eli’s stoicism. In response, he twisted his character, and the depths of his humiliation and suffering became clearer in these final days.
But Timona doesn’t just record Eli’s version or his opinion of himself. As the family dealt with the actual nature of the death — arranging to say goodbye to Zoom calls with friends, checking Eli’s bank accounts, assessing his debts, keeping track of his bills — they also shared their stories. Timoner’s siblings Rachel and David talk with Eli and each other about their father’s impact on their lives. The grandchildren turn to Eli for advice on how to live a good life, and these conversations allow the Timona Patriarch to display his sense of humor and warmth. Then there’s Timona’s mother, Lisa, who is clearly struggling with the thought of losing her husband, best friend and partner. Her grief is quieter and probably further away from the camera.
Even knowing death is imminent, can’t prepare the Timonas or the audience for the final moments of one last flight home . The process is methodical—Eli takes the drug cocktail in three parts—and the emotions are anxiety and sadness. When his final moments came, when the time of death was recorded, there was peace. His family hugged each other, and Rachel’s words rang out again. “Your life isn’t perfect,” she told her at the end of her father’s confession, “but you’re fine.”
41 Full Credit
Publisher: MTV Documentary Producer: Interloper Films
Director: Ondi Timoner
Producers: Ondi Timoner, David Turner
Director of Photography: Ondi Timoner
Editor: Ondi Timoner Composer: Morgan Doctor 1 hour41 minute 50 THR Newsletter
Editor: Ondi Timoner Composer: Morgan Doctor 1 hour41 minute 50 THR Newsletter
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