‘Much Ado About Dying’: IDFA Review

Dir: Simon Chambers. UK/Ireland. 2022. 84mins

If all the world’s a stage, then 80-something Londoner David Gale was certainly one of its more colourful players. Filmed during the final five years of his life by his nephew, documentarian Simon Chambers (Cowboys In India), the Shakespeare-obsessed octogenarian is by turns belligerent and erudite, cantankerous and charming. He is also dying; slowly, at first, absorbed by the ravages and indignities of old age and then, after a prostate cancer diagnosis, in rapid decline. In its refreshingly frank look at the end of life, Much Ado About Dying becomes a thought-provoking study of what it means to live.

 There’s nothing coy or mawkish about David or his fate, documented here in all its fleshy detail

Playing in International Competition at IDFA after bowing at the Irish Film Institute Documentary Festival, the film should command further attention for its bold handling of human mortality. There’s nothing coy or mawkish about David or his fate, documented here in all its fleshy detail. This authenticity, together with its endearing protagonist, could also help attract a wider audience if sensitively programmed by a streamer or broadcaster.

Chambers was attempting to forge a new life in New Delhi, making a documentary about cars, when he began receiving calls from his uncle David, who made the grand — but, it turns out, premature — claim that he was dying. Motivated as much by his own sense of ennui as his uncle’s pleas for help, Chambers decided to move back to London and keep an eye on David.

As Chambers reluctantly became his uncle’s carer, he began to document their interactions. Starting with arguments about tinned goods and unsafe electric heaters in David’s decaying East London flat, the next five years takes in hospitals, care homes, a house fire and, finally, cancer. It’s only the latter which has a hope of besting the obstinate David, who rages against the dying of the light at every opportunity. 

Chambers and seasoned documentary editor Claire Ferguson (Aileen: Life And Death Of A Serial Killer, Who Killed The KLF?), have woven together a compelling, often humorous and unflinching portrait. We learn that David, who had been both a soldier and a teacher, only felt able to come out as gay in his early 60s. Despite a few trysts — and the fact that he may be in love with another young carer, the never-seen and perhaps untrustworthy Roderigo — David had always lived alone. 

A consummate performer, he truly comes alive in front to the camera, emphatically acting out passages from his beloved Shakespeare; usually while stark naked. Camera and music choices, ranging from noir-ish shots of a rainy street and a horror-inspired zoom to a darkened window to silent movie-esque perilous piano, emphasise both David’s theatrical personality, and the dramas unfolding around him.

The Bard’s King Lear — in which the ageing monarch makes preparations for his death by divesting his assets — also provides a touchpoint for Chambers’ measured narration, in which he expresses his frustrations at being tied to David and his attempts, like Lear’s Fool, to stop his uncle making unwise choices. As time passes, observations become more introspective, Chambers drawing parallels between himself and his uncle, wondering whether this same fate awaits him, pondering what’s really important; audiences may find themselves asking those same questions. In David’s final days, he observes that dying has given him the time and space to appreciate his life as a whole; a poignant parting gift.