There are announcements, and then there’s a proclamation of a parent who wishes to end their life. And so it is for Iris (Julia Akkermans) who meets her father and brother for dinner only to discover that her parent doesn’t want to carry on. “75 is a beautiful age,” he says, “but I don’t want to be 76”. Her reaction is human: denial, disbelief and bewilderment. Pink Moon’s treatise concerns assisted suicide, a current topic of discussion felt all across the world.

Where last year’s Sunlight (Claire Di) dealt with assisted suicide by holding two recovering addicts in dialogue, Pink Moon centres on a family, and their responses to a father’s desire to end his life on good terms. One of the key differences between the two features is that the protagonist in Sunlight was a sickly man looking for closure, whereas the old man in Floor van der Meulen’s work seems perfectly healthy. Indeed, daughter and son Iris and Ivan (Eelco Smits) remind him of the friends, family and companionship he will leave behind. But the decision is final, and the rest of the work centres on Iris and her ability to come to terms with it.

Sadly, Akkermans isn’t particularly engaging as a lead, being pouty in the funny scenes, and faintly glib in the more dramatic ones. By contrast, Johan Leysen is a formidable presence as the aging Jan, a person beset with moral contradiction, but determined to do right by his loved ones. Jan even stipulates in his will that this decision is his alone, and his children should walk free without guilt. When he cautions his children to the plan, the father admits that they “won’t like it”, but begs them to “respect it.”

Many of the picture’s most impactful moments are the silent ones: little exchanges in the car between daughter and father processing the news, Iris’s forceful brush strokes showcasing her rage. By saying nothing, the main characters express everything; their eyes betraying their inner truths. There are jokes in the film that draw from the seriousness of the topic rather than deflate it, but Iris’s “that day is very inconvenient” highlights the absurdity she is facing (the quip is in reaction to the nuclear family’s decision on a death date). Sixto Rodriguez standard Cause is played on the radio, detailing Jan’s inner turmoil, highlighting the doubts he endures on this long, treacherous road to farewell. Understandably, there are times when Iris’s poker face falls, and she bursts into tears, sobbing over the snow.

Uneven in execution, Pink Moon works when it focuses on the father’s decision, and less so when it concerns the children coming to grips with his plan. At times, it veers into soap opera, but whenever it does Leysen’s quietly charming face sets the film back on course. Which is as it should be; the central theme concerns the demise of his protagonist. Life for everyone else in the flick must continue in some form or other.

Pink Moon gives viewers the chance to discuss the intricacies of assisted suicide among themselves. If one had to face such a dilemma, would a person accept it calmly, or would they react like Iris does? There are no clearcut answers for a question that deals with the most harrowing of real-life scenarios: the death of a loved one. If cinema is to continue asking such pertinent questions of cinemagoers, it will need to find the courage and steel to write stories that tackle these issues with honesty.

Pink Moon shows online for free throughout the entire month of December as part of ArteKino 2024..

Just click here in order to watch it now.