I Am Breathing - film review

Witty, blokey architect, Neil Platt was diagnosed with motor neurone disease age 33. This moving documentary, made on a shoestring by film makers Morag McKinnon and Emma Davie, follows his journey from diagnosis to his final days
21 June 2013

To say that this documentary about blogger Neil Platt was made for nuppence would probably be over-stating things. Production values are virtually non-existent. And yet it's a marvel.

Witty, blokey architect, Platt was diagnosed with motor neurone disease age 33 - a few months after the birth of his son, Oscar. By Christmas, he was using a walking stick. By his birthday, he was in a wheelchair. His face is perfectly animated (he looks a bit like Echo and the Bunnymen's Ian McCulloch) but, thanks to the ventilator tubes festooned about his person, he resembles Spiderman villain, Dr Octopus. Neil wants to be himself. The life-support machines, paradoxically, make him appear less than human.

As Neil lies dying, he uses voice recognition software to try and help him formulate proper good-byes. Film makers Morag McKinnon and Emma Davie play their part, too.

A running thread has Neil attempting to communicate with his young son, via a letter and a memory box. This is the least successful aspect of I Am Breathing. As with much reality TV, it feels a mite too packaged. It's the dialogue between Neil and his exhausted wife, Louise – and the crooning between Neil and the increasingly independent, Oscar - that makes you gulp.

That, and the last, unfinished sentence of Neil's blog, which explains why he wants to leave his home and move to a hospice...

The two words he uses (“devastating” and “degrading”) acknowledge the horror that Louise and his friends have been trying, with such indefatigable energy, to protect him from. Yet, by acknowledging the horror, one could argue that Neil transcends it. If the film-makers' aim was to close the gap between viewers and “victims” of motor neurone disease, they have done themselves proud. Art introduces us to new people. After watching “I Am Breathing”, you will feel so pleased to have met Neil.

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