‘Witte flits’ by Laura Hermanides

Rick, an Amsterdam man in his early forties, has been suffering from and been treated for severe psychological issues for twenty years. He has received a myriad of diagnoses, including identity disorder, pain disorder, depression with psychotic features, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and mixed personality disorder. At the beginning of the film, Rick’s persistent wish not to live any longer is acknowledged by his treating psychiatrist, and she is willing to consider his request for assisted suicide. The film explicitly portrays Rick’s suffering; he views life as hell and says: ‘Life doesn’t want me, and I don’t want life.’ Rick expresses the wish that his death will be light, as his life was dark. However, the film does not focus on the decision-making process of the involved doctors but primarily highlights the perspective of his parents. They support their son’s wish for assisted suicide but also wonder whether there is truly no hope left and if, deep down, he might still want to live. The film shows how the parents, during the last weeks of their son’s life as the decision-making process takes place, come to recognize the hopelessness of his situation. Unsure about the outcome of the doctors’ decision about his request, Rick desperately sits with his mother by an Amsterdam lake (Sloterplas) on a labyrinth drawn on the ground, uncertain about his life’s path. After Rick’s request for assisted suicide is accepted, he is admitted to a hospice. There the psychiatrist assists with the suicide, and Rick dies in the presence of his parents, brother, and sister. Most remarkable is the shot depicting the moment of death: the film shows Rick from the side with his parents sitting behind him. In the lengthy shot, Rick can be seen losing consciousness, while the emotions of the parents – especially their grief – are shown simultaneously. The color white is an important motif in the film: the white flash from the title – translated from the Dutch ‘Witte flits’ – refers to a small toy car of Rick’s, but the number of meaningful white objects expands throughout the film and the color becomes increasingly associated with his death.

Witte flits was chosen as the opening film of the Netherlands Film Festival 2024, twenty years after the film Simon, which portrayed euthanasia as an achievement of a progressive society, received the same honour and became a crowd favourite. While Witte flits is set in 2012, when euthanasia or assisted suicide for psychiatric suffering was still rare, the questions it raises remain highly relevant. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of cases of euthanasia and assisted suicide for psychiatric suffering in the Netherlands. In the spring of 2024, psychiatrists wrote a letter to the head of the Public Prosecution Service in which they complained about what they considered the ‘derailed discourse on euthanasia for psychiatric suffering.’ They expressed concerns about the promotion of euthanasia and assisted suicide by fellow psychiatrists, highlighting the case of euthanasia being performed on a minor psychiatric patient. Several points of debate surrounding assisted suicide for psychiatric patients are also visible in Witte flits. For example, the film addresses the hopelessness of the patient’s suffering: how can you truly know there is no real possibility of improvement and no realistic treatment options left? Also addressed are the complexities of psychiatric diagnosis and the fact that a desire for death can be part of someone’s mental illness. The film is modelled after the case of a real patient, René Johannesma; he had asked his parents to advocate for the option of assisted suicide for psychiatric suffering. Johannesma’s case received ample media attention, after which director Laura Hermanides contacted the patient’s mother to inform her that she wanted to make a film about her son. Although Hermanides has stated in interviews that she did not want to make a film that tells the viewer what to think, Witte flits provides insight into why a wish to die based on psychiatric suffering is accepted and supported by those for whom it must be hardest – the parents. Also interesting is the role of the psychiatrist (according to Hermanides closely modelled after the actual psychiatrist), who provides assisted suicide from a distinctly religious conviction, in which mercy is paramount. Through its penetrating portrayal of Rick’s suffering, the film evokes an understanding of assisted suicide for psychiatric suffering, without setting aside the moral dilemmas for doctors and society.