Fais le mort !

Matthew Lancit has recorded in a film diary his close encounters with a disease he has had since adolescence: diabetes. But this account of everyday life is gradually contaminated by his own imagination of possible futures: fantastical and burlesque representations of diabetes and its effects on the body. Gradually, what begins as a nostalgic family film is invaded by fantastical imagery straight out of a horror film.

"If there is one person Matthew Lancit can’t get out of his mind, it is his uncle Harvey. Dark rings around his eyes, pale, blind, his legs amputated. Like Harvey, the filmmaker also suffers from diabetes. He has the disease under control, but one question is always nagging at him: How much longer? His long-term (self-)observation reliably revolves around fears of infirmity and mutilation. He translates the feared body horror into film, stages himself as a zombie, vampire, a desolate figure. Lancit playfully anticipates his potential decline, serving up a whole arsenal of effects which – as video recordings prove – go back to his youth. It is not for nothing that the "dead" in the title is also reminiscent of "dad". Because Play Dead! also negotiates his own role as a father.
Lancit deeply involves his family in his fantasies, letting them become demons and lurch through the living room together. The documentation of his own diabetes also allows us a look at a modern Paris family life with two small children and a partner who usually plays along sympathetically with her husband’s carryings-on. Lancit’s approach deliberately transgresses borders, opens body, soul and front door. The result is a humorous and occasionally disturbing self-testimony."
(Carolin Weidner - DOK Leipzig)