ﷺThe serene Swiss landscape passes by quietly, as Shonali gazes out of the train window. It is her best friend Chika’s final day on the planet. Shonali flew all the way from India to Switzerland to fulfil Chika’s last wish—to be filmed when he dies by assisted suicide. However, familial conflicts compel him to forfeit his wish. Instead, he has asked Shonali to let him be with his family in his final moments. In a bid to keep her head on her shoulders, Shonali has set out to explore the mountains instead.
🗹Suddenly, her phone rings. It’s Chika. Ecstatic and stunned at the same time, Shonali receives the call. Chika says that he isn’t going anywhere today.
Filled with moments—both joyful and heart wrenching—A Fly On The Wall ♋(2024) by Shonali Bose and Nilesh Maniyar is an evocative ode to the immense possibilities of friendship. The film, shot as a documentary, doesn’t shy away from broaching conversations that are otherwise considered uncomfortable, even taboo in the Indian society. It delves into the layers of difficult questions, not just on bodily autonomy and the choice to live and die with dignity, but also on the deep conflicts that constitute the perspective of a filmmaker.
Bose—who has had significant experience with bearing witness to death, both on and off screen—is chosen by her friend Chika to film his last days, as he chooses the path of euthanasia instead of dying a painful death by cancer. At least, that is the overall impression that the audience gets at the beginning of the film. However, as the narrative unfolds, one realises the deeper intent behind this choice, which is unnerving not just for the viewer, but also the filmmaker. A Fly On The Wall 🐻captures all of it—the cold objectivity that Chika expects from his best friend in his final moments, the anger and guilt that Bose battles with while conceding to his surreal expectations from her, and the unrelenting clock that keeps ticking through it all.
The remarkable landscape of Switzerland and a poignant soundtrack are complementary to the unforeseen chaos that unfolds through the course of the few days that Chika and Bose are together. There is constant back and forth on the subject of shooting ✃the final moment of consuming the poison—questions of ethicality, consent, proximity and distance keep rattling through the conversations and arguments between the two friends. The viscerality of this uncertainty is foregrounded through the handheld camera, the unpoised shots and the tight close-ups, which, as Bose admits, is quite contrary to her style as a fiction filmmaker.
🃏One scene, in particular, highlights the contradictions that abound in what is being seen and felt in the film. At the moment when Bose comes out from a quick dip, she records herself visibly shaken from an almost-drowning experience. The scene is in stark contrast to all the calmness and resilience she embodies while dealing with the inevitable departure of her friend up until that point. What the scene, and the wonderful editing of the film, bring to light is the inherent conflict between the exercising of conscious choice to die and the subconscious human instinct to survive.
Chika’s musings on his life choices in A Fly On The Wall 🎃are accentuated delicately through the visuals of post cards. Through graphics that resemble handwritten diary entries, Chika shares with the viewer the ideas that are running through his mind, as he inches closer to his death. As his thoughts oscillate between funny and sombre, lucid and obscure, a gentle peek is offered into the rush of emotions that Chika is inundated with in the film.
🐓While Chika’s journey and its soulful culmination are beautifully encapsulated in this documentary, one is inevitably left wondering whether the stratification of class that permeates life, also follows us in death. Questions on who can afford a dignified release from a terminal illness, who gets to exercise autonomy over their bodies and most importantly, who can choose to film such a process, continue to linger beyond the film. Despite these achingly obvious cracks, however, the film is still able to resonate with whoever watches it through its innate humanness of embodying irreconcilable contradictions.
