Watching a film about dementia is, ordinarily, a sobering activity. We watch someone become imprisoned in the temporal chaos of their mind. We empathise with the family members nobly trying their best to do what’s right. We leave the film in a fog of melancholia, having been reminded of how sad the condition is.
And dementia is sad. But the stories we tell about it need not only be a premature elegy for someone still living. There is more for filmmakers to think about here: when does “the rest of our lives” stop mattering? How do we love those profoundly changed by illness? What is it like when the concept of “now” itself becomes unfamiliar?
Two recent films ask such questions with remarkable imaginative liberty. Instead of falling into well-worn narrative patterns that equate dementia with an inevitable loss of self, they pull at a loose thread in the fabric of that long-entrenched, unhelpful story of tragedy, which has been of disservice for far too long.
