What Kind of a World is This?

What God-forsaken area do you live in?

Even in Los Angeles they cremate and keep the remains for quite sometime while attempting to find a family member. Then they are eventually buried. You can go on line the the county medical examiner and search for unclaimed bodies back to 1980, maybe earlier.

Then there is Hart Island in NYC. The largest tax funded cemetery in the world. "More than one million dead are buried ther, now approximately 1,500 a year." (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Island,_New_York)

This happens almost everywhere. According to the article, it's not just homeless and unidentified. There are still potter's fields all over the country. If someone cannot afford a burial, they aren't just going to let him rot on the street. The taxpayers have to take care of the body.

Just because you don't know it happens doesn't mean it isn't so.

In his research, Eddie Marsan visited several London councils that have employees like his character, John May, in the film. So the service exists. And burials take place. It is not too much of a stretch to imagine these council employees are authorised to pay for funerals. John May is a compassionate man who takes his job seriously and feels that nobody should go unmourned, so he uses his authority to pay for the funerals, and attends them when nobody else will because he comes to know and care about the deceased. His boss sacks him and criticises his expenditure because he (the boss) is a bureaucrat first and a human being second.

This is, quite simply, a beautiful film. Slow, yes, but subtle and deeply, deeply moving. If, as you say, you could not finish the film, I urge you to suspend any disbelief you may have and watch until the end. Its rewards are tremendous!



If she weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood.

It's a shame you didn't give this film a chance because of a small detail (which was addressed by his employers later on, that you can see in various trailers for the film).

Hardly worth getting "so angry" over. Many other films commit much bigger crimes!

"Look at it this way; in a hundred years who's gonna care?"

Yes this is exactly what happens. It is an unusual and fascinating concept, maybe an anachronism..hence a good subject for a film. Every death is recorded by a court and each person is given a funeral whether there is anyone to pay for it or not.. and they are just like the ones in still life; a big empty room with just one mourner paid to be there by the local authority. Not everyone takes this role as seriously as John, as the film clearly shows.

For god's sake, can't you just accept the message of this movie rather than insist that it meet your standards?

You missed the whole point of this movie, lavender.


Actors do not have a job...they have a blast!

One of the points of the film was that May was found redundant, partly because he kept billing the government for "funerals". (Or at least buying cheap coffins and paying priests to do bare-minimum services.) His supervisor reads him out for not cremating people and dumping them on the ground, which is exactly what he ends up doing (reluctantly) and his replacements do after him (happily).

So you may rest in the knowledge that the boroughs of London are apparently run by people who are just as inhumane as those who run your government.

There was a front page story in today's Sunday new York Times about just such a situation: a seemingly friendless man is found dead in his apartment, and the relevant government officials track down relatives and heirs, arrange for his cremation, dispose of his goods.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/nyregion/dying-alone-in-new-york-city.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

The commentors on here apparently do not live in the USA.
Unclaimed bodies are eventually buried but there's no ceremony and the bodies are NOT placed into great looking coffins like in this movie. (I loved this movie, btw.) They are buried in what I think are pine boxes, not treated in anyway. Then the coffins are placed 'en masse' in a potter's field, with 5-10 coffins side by side or buried on top of each other.

An exhusband died and was buried while I was working overseas. I did not hear about his death till a couple months later. He died in San Francisco and was Buried in Colma which is a 'town' of DEAD PEOPLE. It's where the cemetaries are for that area of the SF Peninsula. Mike Karp was not a homeless, unidentified person, but because land is limited there, he was buried ON TOP OF ANOTHER COFFIN, that had been buried a decade before (probably a family member, I can't remember, as this happened many years ago).

This movie was so sad! Reminded me of the Beatles song: Eleanor Rigby.
or "Is that alol there is my friends? Then let's keep dancing...."

LIFE IS A SERIES OF TRIPS TO THE GARBAGE CAN, AND NOTHING MORE.

— To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

The writing was perfect, so was the direction and the acting.
My "Kentucky Derby" hat is DOFFED to the writer. :)

Life is a journey not a destination. Fear nothing.