"The Father" is a 2020 drama film, about an old man (Anthony - Anthony Hopkins), with dementia, who lives alone in his apartment in London. His daughter (Anne - Olivia Colman), who takes care of him, struggles with the burden of care, and with the moral dilemma around moving her father to a nursing home.
There is nothing new in this story: In recent years there have been several good movies on older persons and their families, struggling with dementia or Alzheimer's disease. Many of them have been reviewed in this blog (e.g., The Leisure Seeker; Still Mine; Still Alice; Iris; and more). Most of them were actually quite good.
However, all of these movies have focused on the "external" experience of dementia: How dementia is seen from the outside; How people who care for their loved ones - who have to deal with the loss of memory and of identity - are lost in their daily lives; How society lacks the tools to provide adequate care and solutions to these challenges.
However, so far, there hasn't been a movie which successfully provided the point of view of the older persons themselves: the confusion, the loss of time, the helplessness, the inability to comprehend the reality......
And to be honest - how can one do it in a movie? how can you create the filmographic setting in which a healthy person will actually feel as if he or she are in the mind of an Alzheimer's stricken older person?
Well....go and watch the movie "The Father".... This outstanding and brilliant movie achieves what no gerontological movie has achieved so far: to allow the audience to actually become confused about reality, and to truly begin to feal the helplessness of losing one's memory, and to start to understand what it means to lose one's touch with reality.
How does the movie succeed in doing so? I will not spoil you the experience. I will only say that we are lucky that Anthony Hopkins is ageing: his performance in this movie (like similar recent movies in which he plays the role of an old man struggling with loss of abilities - e.g. The Dresser; The Two Popes) - is simply brilliant. This time Hopkins is accompanied with yet another excellent actress - Olivia Colman - which plays beautifully the role of the daughter.
It has been a while since I have watched such an excellent, ground-breaking, gerontological movie. This is it. Go see it !
2020
UK
Director: Florian Zeller
הי איסי,
הבחירה לספר את הסיפור מנקודת מבטו של האדם החולה חשובה. נכון שלא באמת יודעים עד כמה תיאור זה קרוב למציאות, אך בעיניי הנושא טופל בצורה ראויה.
כמו כן, עוצמתו של הסרט היא בכך שרוב הסיפור מתרחש בסביבה פיזית מוגדרת - בית. גבולות גזרה מוגדרים מאפשרים לצופה להרגיש בטוחים ונינוחים אפילו, כדי לעבור את המסע יחד עם הדמות.
די פשוט להראות כיצד הולכים לאיבוד בחוץ וראינו את זה במספר סרטים בעבר. לעומת זאת, לאורך סרט זה אנחנו הולכים שוב ושוב לאיבוד בתוך הבית וזה מה שהופך את המסע למטלטל כל כך.
I am aware of it. Not an easy subject to bring across. Chag Sameach. Dalia
Hi Issi, I, also, thought it was a good movie. Great playing. One of the issues I had with this movie was that just about every symptom, behaviour, responses typical to people living with dementia were condensed to fit one person during an hour an half (the duration of the film). Also, why the daughter waited so long (in the story) to get support for her dad and herself? It seems to me he passed the level of moderate dementia. However, I still think it is a good movie that managed to portray the frustration of all involved. Perhaps the next film should deal with the psychosocial aspects of dementia care and what could have done to deflect those stressf…