To Be or Not to Be (1998) User Reviews

Life is Precious

[Martin-117 · 8/10 · 21 August 2000]

Having known someone who needed a kidney transplant, I was aware of the tremendous difficulty in finding a tissue matched donor organ. This film, which is about a heart transplant, brings out the desperation of the patient for whom there is no longer any other treatment option very clearly and realistically.

What I had not considered, and what this film made me aware of, is the extremely difficult position that the relatives of a deceased person are put in when they are requested to give permission for an organ donation. At this point they are already suffering from the shock and grief of having lost someone they loved, and this additional burden can test the limits of what they can bear.

This film is definitely not an "art" movie, but a very graphic and explicit documentation of what people experience under these circumstances. While modern medicine has brought with it many benefits (and I have seen the wonderful effect of a successful kidney transplant in real life), we still need to deal with our very human fears and prejudices.

I think that this is a most valuable film to see, as it confronts these issues in a very direct way, and may help to prepare one for the new moral and ethical responsibilities that technological advances have forced upon us.

To be or not be, it's the question...

[Metrowog7 · 9/10 · 3 January 2006]

When the movie was shown for the first time,a little crowd turned out. A friend of mine was among them who had been shocked with the powerful yet true image of Iranians' profound cultural issues. Now after almost ten years,I can fully understand my friend (he is a huge movie lover).

"To Be or Not to Be" depicts the painful poverty,malicious misunderstanding and inevitable miscommunication (people in the movie talk with two different accents and two languages) which are buried in every single layers of Persian culture.These issues like religious prejudice usually ignored by film makers to avoid the censorship of regime (they are also not very favorable for foreign film festivals).

The movie is the story of two girls and their families,one Moslem and one Gregorian who are suffering from a serious heart problem and in need of instant heart plantation. Meanwhile,a young groom (belong to a low-class family) is announced brain dead after being hit by some rogues at the night of his wedding. Now two patients are in constant struggle to convince man's family to give their agreement for using the heart of their son. Young groom's family consider them nothing but vultures and dislike the Gregorian girl because of her religion.

After all movie take us to the real world of Iranian believes.But the conclusion proves far beyond the viewer's expectation. They are real people with real heart and sense of humanity regardless of their anger or poverty ,they'll do whatever they're supposed to do as the attentive human beings.

I mostly like the reality of the movie. It happens as it really happens in real cases (I was working as a doctors in some of those hospitals). The perfect performance of the cast is another advantage for the film. They are some problems with light and editing that could be forgotten for the sake of the beauty of the scenes.

I do recommend this movie for people who are still interested in moral values and if they wouldn't mind some very true criticism of Iranian culture.