Death: A Love Story

It's difficult to be hard on a film that is the actual footage of a man's slow death and grisly deterioration to liver cancer. The thing is though, this was not meant to be a documentary, it was a coping mechanism that they later edited together.

Mel Howard is an actor and teacher in Los Angles, not particularly successful, but seems to be doing what he loves, and that's the important thing. He meets Michelle LeBrun, she is 23 years younger than him, but already in her late thirties and early forties. She is a struggling actress. They fall in love and wed. Within two years he is diagnosed. It is then a long 8 months before he eventually dies.

Its a painful death, he ends up with Host vs. Graft which for the liver they gave him is the opposite of what it sounds like, the liver that was supposed to save him is attacking his body instead of vice versa. In the months leading up to his eventual death he did many different types of medicine in hopes of curing himself. In a particularly touching part he is describing how he thought he would cure himself, but in fact was healing himself. He didn't cure his body of the cancer but he healed his soul, or whatever you want to call it.

It is difficult to watch them struggle and eventually come to terms with his passing. There were times I felt anger towards Michelle, and it wasn't really something she could help, and eventually corrects herself. Example: She is angry that when one of the doctors tells them he has a 95% mortality rate, he is rather unemotional, she is angry about this. I don't think she understood at the time that if he gets as emotionally involved in his cases as much as you are, or even a fraction he will just end up killing himself. His job and specialty involve telling people that they aren't going to live. I should hope he would come at that from a place of neutrality. She later says she was wrong about being mad at the doctors, she understands what they had to do.

It was shot very poorly, and like I said earlier wasn't really meant to be seen. It had a lot of problems, and was very upsetting. I cant say I would recommend it, but it certainly was interesting. 6/10 stars.

Director: Michelle LeBrun