Discussions in Bioethics: The Courage of One's Convictions
1985 · 14m · Canada
Directed by Gil Cardinal
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, provocative
A seventeen-year-old girl refuses life-prolonging medical treatment on religious grounds, forcing her physician to question who decides matters of life and death.
Picked by Margot
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Cardinal refuses the easy moral victory — there's no sermon here, just a seventeen-year-old holding her ground while the physician unravels, which is precisely the wrong direction for consensus to expect.
A masterclass in constraint and restraint; the film's refusal to settle the ethical question mirrors its compositional discipline, positioning itself squarely in the lineage of humanist documentary that trusts ambiguity over resolution.
The genius move is Cardinal's decision to keep the camera on the physician's discomfort rather than the girl's conviction — that single compositional choice inverts who we think the film is about, and it costs nothing but clarity of vision.