Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows Lisette Nigot, a healthy 79-year-old, writing her final statement that details why she is choosing to end her life by what she terms voluntary euthanasia. The clip opens with a view from the windscreen of a car being driven along an inner-city road by Dr Philip Nitschke. While driving through a long tunnel, he talks about Nigot’s decision to end her own life. Nigot is shown seated at a desk and using a typewriter to prepare her final statement. In a voice-over, Nigot reads part of the completed statement.

Educational value points

• This clip offers the opportunity to see part of a controversial production that explores the decision of a healthy individual to undertake voluntary euthanasia. Mademoiselle and the Doctor was the subject of considerable debate, mainly because of its sympathetic portrayal of a healthy person’s desire to commit suicide. Although there is public support for voluntary euthanasia for the terminally ill, access to assisted suicide for otherwise healthy people who simply wish to die is a far more challenging concept.

• Healthy and with no reason to die except for being tired of life and aware that assisted suicide would not be available to her once she was too infirm to instigate her own death, Lisette Nigot committed suicide in November 2002 in her Perth home. Her final statement, part of which is heard in this clip, is a conscious political document arguing the case for the right of an individual to be lawfully assisted to die at the moment of their choice. Her death created a national furore and triggered a coronial investigation by the police.

• Footage of Lisette Nigot writing her final statement creates a powerful portrait of the phrase ‘rational suicide’. The filmmaker chooses to portray Nigot as a balanced individual who has taken a reasoned approach to dying. A retired academic, recipient of France’s most prestigious academic award the Office of the Palmes Academiques, Nigot is shown at her desk in her book-lined study, carefully and thoughtfully documenting her decision. The intimate close-ups and enquiring camera angles visually suggest the filmmaker’s support for Nigot.

• Dr Philip Nitschke, seen in the clip, is a controversial figure in the voluntary euthanasia movement. He supports Nigot’s decision to terminate her life while she is still healthy, citing his experience of seeing individuals who wish to die but have become incapable of taking their own life. While he actively supports people’s right to determine the time and manner of their deaths it is currently illegal to ‘assist’ someone to commit suicide in Australia.

• The power of film editing is apparent in the clip as the filmmaker consciously blends footage of Nitschke driving his car into a long dark road tunnel with voice-over of him explaining that he sees many people choosing, like Nigot, to move ‘towards death’. As the camera swings up to focus on the roof of the long, seemingly endless tunnel, Nitschke is heard explaining his view that Nigot’s decision to die is not a tragic one. The long shot of the roof of the tunnel lit by a string of lights becomes a film metaphor for Nigot’s chosen journey towards death.

• The footage, with its comments from Nitschke and Nigot, is of historical interest as it is taken from a documentary made before 2006 when legislation was introduced banning the publication of material that could be considered incitement to suicide. This move was fiercely contested as many considered it an infringement of the right to freedom of speech. As a result of this legislation Nitschke’s organisation, Exit International, which has its office in Darwin, moved its internet publishing operations from Australia to New Zealand.