It’s easy to get death wrong on television: to treat it with too much solemnity when a life needs celebrating, or to tiptoe around it so carefully that you end up misplacing or trivialising its significance. Director Rowan Deacon, however, achieved the near impossible with How to Die: Simon’s Choice (BBC Two), in dodging every single possible pitfall.
電視上所傳遞的死亡的概念通常是錯誤的：當生命需要喝彩慶祝時，我們卻很容易用過於莊嚴的態度來面對她；有時，你又得小心翼翼地避開她，結果最後就逐漸淡忘了死亡的重要性。然而，通過BBC播出的這部關於安樂死的紀錄片：《如何死亡：西蒙的選擇 》，導演羅文迪肯實現了近乎不可能的事：他儘可能避開了落入每一個俗套。
Given that the programme depicted a man’s final months before heading to a clinic in Switzerland, it was inevitable that assumptions would be made prior to broadcast about it being a pro-euthanasia tract. It was nothing of the sort – in fact, perhaps the most unexpected and impressive thing about How to Die: Simon’s Choice was how uncontroversial it was.
考慮到這個節目記錄的是一個男人在前往瑞士一家診所前最後的歲月，在節目播出前，必然就會有人猜想它和安樂死有關。可它並非那樣——事實上，可能最令人意想不到和印象深刻的是：《如何死亡：西蒙的選擇 》如何引起人們的爭議。
As a piece of documentary filmmaking, it was miraculously nimble and considered; Deacon took great pains to remain neutral about a very charged subject. She was helped no end by the fact that 57-year-old Simon Binner and his wife Debbie represented those two sides with articulacy, emotional honesty and a complete determination not to allow their diametrically opposed views to shake their love for each other.
作為一部紀錄片，它出乎意料的生動，並且尊重人性。為了保持這樣一個敏感話題的中立性，迪肯煞費苦心。57歲的西蒙·賓納他的妻子黛比代表了愛情中的雙方，有著完整的表達能力，令人感動的誠實和徹底的決心，儘管兩人持完全相反的觀點，他們從未動搖對彼此的愛。這個事實給了迪肯很大的幫助。
Simon, diagnosed with motor neurone disease and given a maximum of two years to live last January, had resolved to end his own life rather than endure the ravages of the condition. 「The endgame of motor neurone disease is not to my taste,」 he noted. Once his own vocal cords had begun to fail him, his thoughts were mostly either written down or voiced by an actor chosen for his 「strong and manly」 tones.
片中的主人公西蒙於2015年1月被診斷出患有運動神經元疾病，醫生稱最多只能再活兩年。他不願忍受疾病的蹂躪，選擇結束生命。他說，「我不想讓自己直到生命結束之際，卻還要陷在運動神經元疾病的痛苦裡。」一旦他的聲帶開始出現故障，他大多的想法要麼化作筆頭用語言表示出來，要麼由一個和他的音色很像的人模仿出他「強大男子氣概」的聲音。
Debbie had already experienced the loss of her 18-year-old daughter to a terminal disease. Her resilient optimism in the face of this rank injustice was continually astounding.
黛比已經經歷過他們18歲的女兒罹患絕症去世的痛苦，面對此次的不幸，她仍舊保持堅強樂觀的精神，令人十分驚嘆。
Simon wanted to go to spare himself and his loved ones the pain; Debbie loved him too much to let go. Notions of right or wrong simply never entered the equation. The wider arguments may be well-worn, but they bore repeating: individual rights versus collective responsibility. It’s hard to think of a more charged or important debate than that of the right for one human being to take the life of another.
西蒙想獨自承受自己以及親人的痛苦，而黛比則因為太愛他選擇放手。對於兩人的選擇，並不能用簡單的對與錯來進行評判。更廣泛的爭論可能正是老生常談、而又不願去重複討論的話題：個人的權利與集體的責任。很難找出一個比人的生命權更讓人感動、更重要的辯論。
While the Binners faced their own private struggles, Deacon paused in September to recognise the House of Commons as it debated a law to legalise lethal injections for those with less than six months left to live: MPs rejected the bill by 330 votes to 118.
2015年9月，在西蒙正面對自己的人生抉擇時，迪肯也暫停了拍攝，因為當時英國下議院提議通過一項新的決議，允許生命少於6個月的人申請注射死亡。這項法案最終以330票反對和118票支持被否決。
Simon, meanwhile, made his choice, yet Deacon’s film never short-changed Debbie’s opinions or underplayed the emotional toll his decision took on those he was leaving behind. Simon gradually came to acknowledge his responsibility to his family and friends (「If I was single, I』d be gone,」 he claimed), while Debbie’s positivity crumbled after Simon, driven to complete desperation by his worsening condition, tried and failed to hang himself.
與此同時，西蒙作出了他的選擇。而迪肯在影片中也大量描述了黛比的意見，還濃墨重彩的刻畫了西蒙作出這個決定付出的情感代價。西蒙逐漸認識到了他對家人和朋友的責任，（他說，「如果我是單身，我會離開」）。而西蒙的病情持續惡化，迫使他徹底作出死亡的決定，嘗試自縊，失敗。黛比的積極情緒開始崩潰。
Even after his death, she was wracked with guilt, confusion and trauma: 「Did I do enough to make his life worthwhile when he』d done so much for me over the years?」
甚至在西蒙死後，黛比也終日活在愧疚，懷疑和困惑之中。她總是不停地思考：「這些年來，他待我這樣好，我是否又待他同樣好，讓他活著的時候享受到應有的快樂呢？」
By the time they arrived in Basel in October, I was struggling. 「We』ve really said everything that needs to be said,」 Simon concluded in his final message to Debbie.
10月份到達瑞士的巴塞爾時，我內心還在掙扎。在西蒙留給黛比的最後話語中，他說，「我們確實說了所有該說的話。」
Regardless of your standpoint on euthanasia, the same was surely true of this sensitive, intimate and deeply affecting film, a landmark documentary that navigated a moral, emotional and legal quagmire with distinction while never forgetting the human tragedy at its heart.
即使不考慮安樂死的問題，這部紀錄片同樣是感性的，貼心的，影響深遠的，它非常成功的展現了一個道德、情感、法律的困境，也從未忘記將人類的悲劇作為其核心，在這方面具有裡程碑意義。