Greek-French director Costa-Gavras's latest film is set in a hospital's palliative care unit. And while death is ever present, Le Dernier Souffle ("The Last Breath") is above all an ode to life – and to the medical professionals who stay alongside their patients until the very end.
The idea for the film came from a book of the same name cowritten by doctor Claude Grange and philosopher Régis Debray, who sought to bring the issue of end of life care into the public dialogue.
The film follows an encounter between a writer (played by Denis Podalydès) and a doctor of palliative care (Kad Merad) who strike up a friendship. The writer comes to the hospital for a scan he is afraid will reveal a life-threatening cancer.
Instead, he discovers how people prepare for death in “a world [capable of] making the unacceptable bearable”.
For Costa-Gavras, the book was a heartening read, illuminating the options for how the end can be – after all, he says: "The end of life is still life."
The award-winning director, who celebrates his 92nd birthday on 13 February, said the topic has been on his mind for some time. Is there a perfect way to die, he wondered? This is the question he addresses with this film, while shining a light on palliative care – an area of medicine that is often overlooked but which he describes as "a wonderful system because the patient is never alone".
Parliamentary debate
He admits it was not easy to film around such a serious subject, but choosing to work with real nurses and doctors was helpful. Having researched and observed the field of palliative care, Costa-Gavras laments that not everyone who needs it can access this type of care.
"There are two or three thousand beds for palliative care and there should be 200,000," he told RFI.
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Le Dernier Souffle is coming to French screens at a time when parliamentarians are set to review a bill on assisted dying and palliative care. The original text reached parliament in early 2024 but stalled when the National Assembly was dissolved in June last year.
Prime Minister François Bayrou, a devout Catholic, now wants to separate the two issues into distinct laws – a move that has exposed divisions both within parliament and the governing coalition.
Costa-Gavras – who is the president of the Cinémathèque française film museum and archive – insists that while his film is connected to societal issues, it was not his intention to weigh in on the debate.
"The timing of the film just so happened to coincide with these moments. We didn’t plan anything. I prefer that the film has its own life because we’ll all find ourselves in this situation," he said.
He says his objective with Le Dernier Souffle was to create a bond with the viewer. "You don’t go to the cinema to listen to a conference about medicine or an academic speech," he said. "You go to the cinema to feel emotion: to love, or not love, to cry, be angry, be happy."
A new home in France
Born Konstantinos Gavras in the Arcadia region of Greece in 1933, he was not allowed to enrol in university in his homeland, nor get a visa for the United States, due to his father’s links to Greece’s Communist Party.
In the 1950s, he made France his home, where he studied literature at the Sorbonne University and later went to film school. Most of his films are in French, but he has made six in English and one in Greek.
In a career spanning 20 feature films, Costa-Gavras (as he is professionally known) has built a reputation for dealing with controversial issues, often inspired by real-life situations, all while using the cinematic codes of a thriller.
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His 1969 film Z deals with political assassination, while 1982's Missing is the story of a disappeared American journalist in 1970s Chile, and Amen (2002) is centred on the relationship between the Church and Nazi Germany.
'All films are political'
Despite often dissecting themes of justice and oppression, Costa-Gavras does not see himself as a specialist of the political genre.
"All films are political on some level because they have a direct connection to the spectator, telling them something, stirring up emotions. Then the spectator either does something with that or doesn’t.
"Politics for me isn’t just about who you vote for or who gets into government. It’s about daily life. The relationships you have with other people, whether you make them feel happy or unhappy – that’s politics," he said.
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Costa-Gavras will be the recipient of an honorary award at this year's César ceremony – France’s equivalent of the Oscars – on 28 February.
The director says he is "thrilled to be recognised by the profession" – one which he believes has the power to "change the world". To that end, he has already started working on his next project.
