Director: James Kent.  Reviewed by Paul Sorrell 

Still Life portrays the story of a lonely council worker whose job is to settle the affairs of people who have died alone, often with no family members even to attend the funeral. Unfolding at a human pace, the film creates an incremental portrait of a man whose unpromising job moves him towards fulfillment of a kind.

Like the film itself, John May (played by British character actor Eddie Marsan) works at a slow pace, but he is also thorough, meticulous and painstaking. After each case has been closed, he souvenirs a photograph of the deceased which he adds to an album that he keeps at home. Most importantly, he is anxious to give the lost souls with whom he has been charged the respect and consideration they were denied in life. In taking this approach to his job, May is out of tune with the rush and “efficiency” of the modern workplace, the bureaucratic pressures to tie up loose ends at the expense of human values and sensitivity.

After being given the sack — his post will be merged with the neighbouring borough — May decides to complete his final job on his own terms, and sets out to discover all he can about Billy Stoke, an elderly man who had died alone in a rundown apartment across the road from May’s own sparsely appointed bachelor flat. Travelling as far afield as Yorkshire and Devon, he meets one of Billy’s old flames, an old army buddy and a pair of winos who had befriended him towards the end of his life. He also tracks down Billy’s estranged daughter, Kelly, who is deeply moved that May has made the effort to find her.

At this point, it looks as though romance is in the air for our unlikely hero. Then comes a shocking and unexpected event that threatens to derail the film. However, what follows is skillfully folded back into the fabric of the story and brings it full circle. The ending is astonishing, and beautiful without being sentimental.

In its measured and intimate portrait of one man’s daily life, his struggles and small triumphs, Still Life shows us what contemporary cinema can achieve — without resort to “feel good” clichés or special effects. Pasolini’s film succeeds in affirming our common humanity at the level of the everyday and the ordinary; for that reason alone it deserves to be seen.

Published in Tui Motu InterIslands Magazine. July 2015.