This review covers frank discussions of suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, the 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline is available across Canada.

Suicide remains a largely taboo subject, often met with silence when brought up in conversation. For those who have lost a friend, family member, or loved one to suicide, the ensuing grief and sadness can be overwhelming, isolating, and confusing. Canadian filmmaker Alan Zweig aims to foster meaningful dialogue about this difficult topic in his latest documentary, Love, Harold.

After a friend of Zweig’s died by suicide, the filmmaker wanted to make sense of his grief. He reached out to more than 20 friends and acquaintances whose lives had been affected by suicide, and gave them space to tell the stories of their loved ones and to discuss their grief over their death. The result, Love, Harold, is a frank and empathic portrait of suicide, pain, and trauma, free from the shame that generally surrounds the subject.

Despite the many lives it so obviously touches, we as a society don’t discuss or reckon with lives cut short by mental health struggles often enough. But here, Zweig confronts the stigma of suicide by facing it head-on. His interviewees and the stories they tell are unique and varied, but their pain is universal. It is an emotional and cathartic process for them to speak so openly about the death of a friend, colleague, parent, or child, and Zweig ably demonstrates the resilience of the people he dubs “those left behind”.

Composed in a straightforward manner, Zweig frames each one of his interview subjects in a casual setting, with soft light and emotional close-ups. He does not provide name keys for those speaking; it brings some comforting anonymity to the very personal stories, while also allowing for the tales themselves to feel universal. Although the subjects and those they lost are varied in age, gender, and culture, each story profoundly connects. It’s a quiet yet powerful call for empathy and for speaking aloud what too often remains unspoken. Zweig doesn’t try to offer answers, but instead creates a trusting space where compassion and understanding can grow.

Given the heavy nature of the topic, Zweig employs cuts to black at various times, allowing the audience to pause, breathe, and collect their thoughts. It’s both an artistic and emotional choice that works well.

While one might expect a documentary around frank discussions of suicide to be a sad and depressing one, Love, Harold is really about love, not death. The love the interviewees have for their departed one is palpable, colouring their recollections with positive anecdotes, memories, and moments of joy. Despite profound grief and loss, they speak with remarkable understanding and compassion regarding the final decisions of the departed.

Zweig’s unadorned, human approach results in one of the renowned filmmaker’s most affecting works. Without sensationalism or sentimentality, Love, Harold offers an honest meditation on grief and remembrance. Ultimately, the film is an invitation to listen, to share, and to love through the pain.

Love, Harold plays the Rendezvous With Madness Festival on October 24, and the Windsor International Film Festival on October 28.