VIFF 2005 Reviews

Anyone who caught Allan King’s last documentary Dying at Grace, knows that the master documentarian – now 75 – has mortality on his mind. Shot at a Jewish home for the aged in Ontario, King’s rich documentary explores the nature of memory and memory loss with old age. The residents at the home, all in different degrees of senility and dementia, are captured by King’s camera through snippets of conversations on good days and bad days in an effort to show the reality of aging. There are moments when some of the more cognisant residents pity the less fortunate among them. There are moments that illustrate the frustration of losing control over one’s life. And there are moments of deep appreciation and thankfulness for the small joys of life.

Anyone familiar with King’s groundbreaking documentary work (including Canadian classics A Married Couple and Warrendale) knows that King has never shied away from an uncomfortable scene. That willingness to make the audience squirm yields some extremely memorable results but only because of King’s deft touch at character development. In the film’s most heart-breaking section, an ostensibly less forgetful woman repeatedly experiences the loss of her best friend – because she keeps forgetting that she’s been told already. It’s moments like that that make King’s work resonate on such a deeply human level. The film is perhaps a bit slower and longer than the efficient documentary-making we’ve become accustomed to, but if you’ve made it past the age of 90, maybe you’ve earned the right to imposed patience.