On a rooftop under a cloudy autumn sky, Matthias Glasner reflects on his latest film, Dying, which portrays the final stages of life with equal emphasis on humor and tragedy. In our conversation, he offers insight into his creative process and how death, family, and art intertwine in his work.
Glasner is a German director and screenwriter known for his uncompromising and deeply personal films. Earlier works, such as Der freie Wille (2006) and Gnade (2012), explore complex human relationships and moral dilemmas. With Dying, he continues to delve into questions of life, death, and family dynamics, always balanced with a blend of empathy and raw honesty. His films are characterized by a melancholic yet humorous tone, reflecting his Nordic and German roots. As a significant voice in modern European cinema, Glasner has had several of his films screened at prestigious film festivals worldwide.
Dying follows conductor Tom Lunies and focuses on his family relationships. His aging father is nearing death, weakened by dementia, while his mother battles cancer and other illnesses. Meanwhile, his sister struggles with destructive habits, and Tom’s ex-girlfriend wants him to be a father figure to the child she had with another man. The film intricately weaves these complex family dynamics into a poignant and realistic portrayal of life’s final chapter.
-When I started this project, it was an experiment for me. The goal was to write something personal and intimate about a family. My own family isn’t particularly special or spectacular—they’re quite ordinary people. I wanted to give these people a voice, as they had passed away, and as an artist, I could integrate them into my art through a film.
This project began in 2018, after his first daughter was born. Glasner wrote 200 pages in just six weeks, without any project funding. However, as he tells us, it was an interesting experience for him regardless. He was open to it becoming a film if the actors wanted to participate, but he was clear about one thing: either it would be made exactly as he had written it, or not at all. No compromises.
With a smile, I acknowledge that his idealistic approach shines through in the film, and I ask him to elaborate on how, given the extreme challenges and crises the world faces today, he expects Dying to be received in a world that often feels conformist:
-While I was working on the film—from the beginning, through editing, pre-production, financing, filming—it felt like the world was just getting worse and worse. I started doubting whether this film would be interesting to people out there. Maybe it was too private? I felt like it didn’t say enough about war, peace, religion, or the bigger themes. Interestingly, I was really surprised when Berlinale invited the film into competition. From that moment on, it began an intriguing journey.
The film has been shown at several international festivals and has touched audiences worldwide, despite its private and intimate themes. Glasner was surprised by how deeply audiences from various cultures could relate to the film’s depiction of family, death, aging, and the life of an artist. Even in times of war and unrest, the film has evoked strong emotional responses, providing Glasner with insight into how these universal themes resonate across global challenges. I ask him to reflect on how different audiences across cultures experience and react to the film:
-I saw it in China, in Shanghai, with a Chinese audience of 2,000 people. They laughed at the same moments as people would in Australia or Germany. And they were also moved by the same moments. It was completely silent in the theater during the tragic moments of the film. So yes, of course, there are cultural differences and reactions. For example, in Turkey, in Muslim countries, they have a different understanding of motherhood. But even in Turkey, in Istanbul, when I showed the film, many young women said they knew what it meant to regret motherhood or to dislike being a mother. They said, “We know it. We know it’s not allowed to talk about it, but we’re familiar with it.”
In Dying, when Tom visits his mother, a powerful conversation unfolds where Tom is reminded that he was neither a wanted child nor able to receive the love he needed from her. Several scenes in the film capture the tragic state of the family in a realistic and painful way, until the situations eventually turn absurd and humorous. This led me to ask Matthias how he approaches humor in the film. Is it his intention to ease the tragic moments, or is he trying to create contrast to intensify the pain?
–My approach to humor in film is not to create a funny scene or a tragic one. I try to push the tragedy as far as possible because there’s a point where tragedy tips over into humor, deeply connected to the tragedy itself. In a way, the line between them disappears. For instance, in the scene where the sister vomits during her brother’s concert, she’s physically unwell and doesn’t want to do it, while her brother is having perhaps the most important concert of his life. She ruins it, which is deeply tragic. But by pushing the tragedy further and further, it eventually tips over into absurd comedy. Tragedy and humor are completely intertwined. Another example is the mother sitting in her own excrement at the start of the film. The neighbor comes in, but she doesn’t want them to because she can’t stand up. This is a dark situation, but humor arises from the empathy we feel for the characters. It’s a different kind of humor than satire. My humor isn’t satirical; it comes from empathy for the characters’ tragedy.
One intriguing moment is the scene where Tom watches Fanny och Alexander, a film intended to be Bergman’s last before retirement. This film also contains autobiographical elements and explores a dysfunctional family. How do you see the relationship between Fanny och Alexander and Dying? Was this a conscious nod to cinematic history, or did you have a more personal intention?
–Dying is filled with personal references to things I love, like films and music that have been significant to me. I gathered these elements instinctively, without trying to be specifically symbolic. Ingmar Bergman has always been a director I’ve felt connected to, especially due to his themes of destructive love and family relationships, as well as his melancholic, Nordic style. I used to watch Fanny och Alexander every Christmas Eve before I had a family, so that reference came naturally to me. The same goes for the Jim Jarmusch poster in Tom’s apartment – it’s the only film poster I have in my own home. The goal was to create a space of ideas and reflections that the audience could interpret in their own way.
This is undoubtedly one of the magical moments of the interview—when the personal references and the deeply human aspects behind large artistic projects emerge. Gaining insight into the small, yet significant, details that tie the director to his work creates a deeper understanding of how the art reflects his own life. It is in such moments that one truly finds the connections with the director, where his most personal inspirations meet the universal aspects of the film.
Glasner remarks on how different viewers have reflected on various elements of Dying. Some focus on Bergman, while others highlight Bill Fay, whose music plays a significant role in the film, particularly in scenes involving Tom’s sister Ellen. He shares, with evident enthusiasm, that he even received Bill Fay records from journalists who were thrilled that he included the artist’s music, given how few people know him. For Glasner, Dying serves as an offering to the audience:
–The whole film is an invitation to reflect. I see film as a life experience. Over the course of three hours, you get to know real people and their lives. There’s no big message or a bunch of symbolism—just a genuine experience. And maybe, long after watching, you’ll reflect on it, like a wave coming back to you weeks, months, or even a year later.
As I’ve been working on this interview, I’ve already watched Dying three times, and each time I revealed something new. When the conversation shifted to music, I seized the opportunity to ask Glasner about Lorenz Dangel, the composer behind the film’s powerful soundtrack. I was curious about how the process of writing the final, emotionally charged piece developed and how it came to life in the film.
Glasner explains that from the beginning of the project, he wanted to share with the audience the magical moment when people come together to create art. He firmly believes that such moments—whether in film or music—transform time and space into something greater. In 2018, he spoke with Lorenz Dangel, the first person to receive the script. “If this film ever gets made, I’ll need your music,” Glasner told him. Over the next several years, they worked together, exploring different approaches—from avant-garde to neo-classical—discarding many versions along the way. The goal was to make the music credible within a modern avant-garde context but also relatable to a broader audience. Glasner often thought of Arvo Pärt, whose spiritual approach to music greatly inspired him. He wanted the composer in Dying to express happiness through music, not tragedy, comparing this idea to American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, who created beautiful music despite his deep personal darkness.
–Elliott Smith was a very dark character. He took his own life with 18 stab wounds, but his music is some of the most beautiful I know, says Glasner, drawing a parallel between Smith’s work and the music in Dying, particularly in the choir scene.
–The conductor asks the musicians to slow the music down, and although the composer initially doesn’t like it, a magical moment arises as they take it slower. No one expected it to work, but it turned out to be one of the most beautiful moments in the film.
With music and death so closely intertwined in the film, I asked him about another powerful scene—when Tom embraces his dying friend and allows him to commit suicide. “Are you trying to create ethical dilemmas for the audience, or is this an artistic approach to empathy? How do you view this?” I asked eagerly.
-When I wrote that scene, I expected a lot of controversy, but it didn’t happen. People seem to understand it in two different ways. Some see it as a sign that Tom is cold because he lets his friend die, but for me, it’s an act of empathy. He respects his friend’s wish to end his life because his friend never feels connected to this world, perhaps not even to himself. I believe everyone should have the right to choose whether they want to live or not. We don’t get to choose to be born, so we should at least have the right to decide when we want to leave this world.
-There’s a quote from the philosopher Emil Cioran that says, «Without the thought of suicide, I would have surely killed myself long ago.» This is important to me. When Tom lets his friend go, it’s out of empathy and love, not coldness.
As we neared the end of the interview, I wanted to ask about the actors. On one hand, we have the complex male characters played by Lars Eidinger, Hans Uwe Bauer, and Robert Gwisdek. On the other hand, we also have strong female characters. I asked him to share how he worked with the actors to create such multi-layered characters.
–When I write characters, I don’t have clear opinions about them from the start. I don’t think, «This character is like this, and that character is like that.» Each character is a mystery with endless possibilities, often based on people I know or parts of myself. For example, the character Lilith plays, the drunk sister, is actually a part of me, not my sister. It’s another path I could have taken in life. The same goes for Tom and the mother. I don’t try to create characters with a typical learning curve; I don’t like the idea that characters have to learn something. In my films, they learn nothing. They start at a random point and move forward in just as random a way.
–When I work with actors, I look for those with a wide register of humanity, like Lars Eidinger and Corinna Harfouch. They have strong personalities and clear opinions, but they are also open to other perspectives. We don’t just play roles – we live the characters together. I don’t give directions like, «Play it this way.» We explore the humanity in the actors, not the characters. When I’m filming, I’m no longer interested in the characters, only in the actors’ humanity. That’s my way of working.
Finally, I looked at him curiously and asked, «Do you have any future projects in the works that you can share with us here at Filmmagasinet? Our readers would be excited to get a glimpse of what to expect from you going forward.»
–I always have different projects in mind because I often wake up with an idea and think, «This is the best idea ever.» But three months later, I might think, «No, it wasn’t that great after all.» Right now, I have a project that keeps coming back to me, and the more it returns, the more I believe in it. It could become a sort of follow-up to Dying, but with entirely different characters. While Dying focuses on how we relate to ourselves and our family, this new project will focus on how we relate to society and the world around us as adults.
Filmmagasinet thanks Matthias Glasner for a deep, meaningful, and incredibly honest conversation about Dying and his creative process. We look forward to following both this new film and his future projects with great interest. It has been a pleasure to gain insight into his work, and we look forward to staying in touch and discussing more of his films in the future.