Parting

The film PARTING shows how Aleida Hartstra takes leave of her family and friends, and of her life. And its also show the way her family and friends bid her farewell. In the beginning of the film Aleida puts her own situation into words: “Death is like a huge boat and life’s like the quay. I am busy transporting my baggage on the gang-board. Until now I didn’t say goodbye to the people on the quay, but as I transport my baggage piece by piece. I Say goodbye little by little. The moment I’m on the gang-board. I am neither dead nor alive…I am “loose”.” Aleida Hartstra is 29 years old, physician and studying to become a humanistic councillor. She’s suffering from leukaemia and knows she has to die soon. Together with her mother Jikke, her sister Anke and some friends, she prepares herself for the death. In the beginning she’s strong enough to travel and visit her friends and some beloved places – in the knowledge it could be the last time. Family and friends are confronted with the inevitability of the final farewell. Next comes the stage in which she cannot choose anymore, things just happen. The stage in which she has to stay in bed and must be taken care of. When everything’s said and done, when everyone has visited her for the last time, the only thing that’s left is waiting for the death to come. Two months after the first shooting, Aleida dies in the early morning of October the 24st, 1988. The final farewell takes place at the cremation where the people who Aleida loved so much gather for the last time to say goodbye to Aleida, mindful of her way of taking leave. For everyone involved, the making of PARTING has been a penetrating, confronting but also moving process. Especially because of Aleida’s choice to allow the filmmakers to be so close to her and her immediate family. The choice to share with them the emotional, painful and sometimes happy moments. “ One of us has to learn again that death is the hunter, and he always is at someone’s left side. One of us should ask death for a word of advice, and give up the cursed little-mindedness that belongs to people who live their lives as if death will never come to catch them”. ( From: Journey to Ixtlan, Carlos Castaneda ).