Grief is considered a stage in the healing process when someone loses a parent, and memories are a way to keep them close to one’s heart. But, as the Norwegian director Frøydis Fossli Moe captures in The Final Chapter, they don’t necessarily lead to peace when the loved one is also someone you hate. In her raw and powerful short documentary, she wrestles with how to say goodbye to her estranged father, with whom she had cut ties a decade earlier because of his abusive behaviour. Now 29 years old and faced with his terminal diagnosis, she must decide how – or whether – to reconnect.
In intimate conversations with a lifelong friend and her partner, and in tender moments of vulnerability, Moe complicates common notions of familial love, reflecting on how seemingly contradictory emotions can exist side by side. Throughout, her stunning cinematography captures the wintry landscape of Norway, echoing the emotional terrain she traverses. The result is a poignant and deeply honest meditation on the emotional complexities of family.
