A year ago in winter (4 Stars)

This is a slow-moving family drama with an intensity which might not be obvious on the first viewing. It's not a film to watch and forget. It's a film that you have to sit and talk about with your family and friends.

It's the story of a broken family and its struggles to continue living. In winter, shortly before Christmas, 18-year-old Alexander Richter killed himself. He walked into the forest with his father's gun and shot himself in the mouth. Nobody knew why. Everyone thought he was happy, and there was no suicide note to offer an explanation.

A year later the family is falling apart. Alexander's parents are in the process of splitting up. His sister Lilli, now 21, is having trouble continuing her studies as a performance artist because she drinks too much. His mother commissions a life-size painting of her two children together, as if Alexander were still alive. Lilli should be playing the piano while Alexander watches her.

The reclusive painter Max Hollander says he will need three months for the painting. He's given a collection of photos and video tapes of Alexander, but Lilli has to visit him to model. Lilli hates it. She finds it grotesque, but she does what her mother wants. It's more than just modelling. The painter talks to her, trying to find out more about the relationship between her and her brother. He needs to know how they should look at one another in the painting.

As the weeks go by, Lilli begins to process what happened with her brother. She realises how much he loved her. Max might be an artist, but he does a better job than any therapist. Lilli begins to enjoy talking to him, and they find they can help one another. Max is a homosexual struggling to accept his sexuality. With Lilli's help he can talk about it openly, although, ironically, he feels attracted to her the more time they spend together.

When the paining is finally complete, Lilli's mother hates it, but Lilli thinks it's perfect. That's to be expected. Lilli has guided Max with the painting every step of the way. Rather than showing the children together it emphasises their separation. That's the opposite of what the mother wanted. The mother wanted to live in the past, but Lilli can only move on if she accepts things the way they are now.

Suicide can wreck a family, but if a person reaches the point that he has to kill himself things are already broken. Maybe therapy can help someone change his mind about suicide, maybe not. The usual steps in therapy are to persuade the person that it's not as bad as he thinks, that he can become happy, etc. In some cases this might be true, in others it might be giving him a false illusion, promising things that are impossible. I wouldn't try to talk anyone out of suicide. I would just talk to him and help him to see whether it's what he really wants. It's an important decision that shouldn't be taken lightly. There should be no uncertainty. It shouldn't be a spontaneous decision based on something that happened yesterday. But more importantly, the person should explain his reasons. He should write a suicide note, preferably a long, detailed suicide note. He should write exactly what has led him to his decision. Usually after a suicide the friends and family blame themselves, but that should be avoided. If someone really is to blame for the suicide, the person should be named, so that everyone knows whose fault it is.

When I was 18 I attempted suicide. I think I did it the right way at the time, apart from the suicide not succeeding. I thought a packet of rat poison would be enough to kill me, but it just made me sick. I arranged it weeks in advance. I travelled by train to a place where nobody knew me. I mailed a postcard to my parents with a short explanation. I've forgotten what I wrote, but I know it was a lie. The real reason for my suicide was that I couldn't cope with my mother being drunk every night, but I didn't want to blame her. I made up some other excuse, so unimportant that I can no longer remember it.

Do I regret wanting to kill myself? You might think that the fact that I'm alive and writing about it years later is proof that I'm glad I survived. That's not true. I think it was the right decision at the time. Ending my life at 18 would have rounded things off. The aftermath of the failed suicide attempt was traumatic. Months in hospital and years of therapy! Nobody really understood me. The only thing that stopped me doing it again was the fear of failing. What I hated most was certain therapists – luckily not all of them – who called my suicide a "cry for help", as if I'd never intended it to succeed.

However, even if suicide was the right decision for me to make when I was 18, I've moved on. Now I want to live. I've seriously considered suicide twice since I was 18, and both times I came to the conclusion that it would be wrong. There are reasons for me to live. They're possibly selfish reasons, but they're still good reasons for me. But one thing is certain: if my circumstances ever change and I decide to die, I'll write a lengthy explanation of my reasons. I shan't make the same mistake as Alexander in the film. I'll write whatever I can to minimise the uncertainty of those who knew me.