‘Exit’ by Benjamin Kempf

Erika Frey, an elderly woman suffering from cancer, decides to die at home with the help of an assisted suicide organisation to avoid a 'medicalised' death in a hospital. Since she and her healthy husband Ruedi have done everything together in life, they also want to die together, on their fiftieth wedding anniversary as a symbolic gesture, emphasising the romantic nature of their joint death.  While the representative from the organisation prepares the lethal drug, Erika asks Ruedi to play ‘our record‘ in the living room—Love Letters recorded by Ketty Lester. As if rejuvenated, Erika dances and snuggles up to Ruedi like someone newly in love. When they each take a glass with the drug in their hands, the love song continues to play in the background. Ruedi, however whose unease had earlier been conveyed through his facial expressions, resists. He says he doesn't want to die, as he is not the one who is ill. Erika is bewildered, pointing out that it was a joint decision, and the couple argue. In an act of defiance, Erika drinks the drug and lies down in the marital bed. Ruedi, perplexed, goes after her and asks if he should call a doctor. Erika stubbornly refuses. Ruedi looks at her for a few seconds, goes into the living room, and drinks the lethal drug as well. He rushes back into the bedroom, lies down with Erika and asks her if she is still angry. They kiss, and the final tableau shows the two lovers, hand in hand, peacefully nestled together, waiting for death.

Exit is the earliest artistic exploration of a double suicide in the context of organised assisted suicide in Switzerland. Its portrayal is highly ambivalent. The cancer-stricken Erika seems to impose her idea of a shared, romantic death on her healthy husband, whose decision does not appear to have been made autonomously. Yet the tender final tableau of this short film shows Ruedi smiling contentedly in his last moments, suggesting that perhaps Erika was right after all—he couldn’t bear to live without her. The film’s ambivalence between a problematic coercion toward death and a romantic notion of an end-of-life à deux, further reinforced by its tragicomic tone, reflects the discursive tension that formed the backdrop of the story. On one hand, it draws from a real-life case of a double suicide by an elderly couple, romanticised in the media and by the suicide assistance organisation EXIT Deutsche Schweiz as a modern-day Romeo and Juliet. On the other hand, it references the controversy surrounding EXIT Deutsche Schweiz, which faced criticism for violating its own rules, particularly by assisting healthy individuals in ending their lives, rather than limiting the practice to those suffering from a medical condition. While the film does not fundamentally question the practice of organised assisted suicide, it highlights potential issues within the Swiss model and warns that, in every case—especially in the case of couple suicides—it is crucial to thoroughly examine the will of all individuals involved to ensure that each decision is truly autonomous.