“To all those whose brains decompose before their hearts.” Gaspar Noé’s latest film does not hide his elegiac intentions when it comes to showing one of the hardest vital moments that a person can live. ‘Vortex’ is one of those films whose central idea is how time erases everything, showing the physical and mental deterioration of an elderly couple.
However, his portrait is not exclusively tragic. Like other films that have dealt with old age and degenerative diseases, there is a complexity shown within the pain, where a love that seems increasingly difficult to maintain but is still present finds space. Apart from the Noah movie, these three movies available for streaming touch similar concerns about aging and love during dementia.
‘Love’ (‘Amour’, 2012)
Address: Michael Hanke. Distribution: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert, William Shimell, Ramón Agirre.
Unfortunately for ‘Vortex’ and other films with this theme, they will have the titanic task of avoiding the long shadow of Michael Haneke’s masterpiece. His painful and even terrifying look -again charged with depressing nihilism- at the impotence of love during the progressive degeneration of one of the lovers continues to leave the heart in a fist. From a man who has shown extreme violence and tremendous acts performed, getting the most devastating film of him from the privacy of an octogenarian couple is remarkable.
See on HBO Max, on Filmin and on Movistar+ | Criticism in Espinof
‘Rest in peace, Dick Johnson’ (‘Dick Johnson Is Dead’, 2020)
Address: Kirsten Johnson. Distribution: Richard Johnson, Kirsten Johnson, Isla Sierck, Jed Sierck, Felix Torres
It really does qualify as a documentary, but Kirsten Johnson defies convention and easy portraiture in order to make the best possible love letter to her father before he fades away entirely. Full of black humor, cinematographic creativity and a lot of intimate tenderness, ‘Rest in peace, Dick Johnson’ is one of the most surprising pieces dealing with neurodegenerative disease, as well as the certainty that the people we love the most will one day no longer be present physically. Also the pleasure of telling the story of a man so peculiar and, at the same time, so ordinary.
Watch on Netflix
‘The father’ (‘The Father’, 2020)
Address: Florian Zeller. Distribution: Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman, Imogen Poots, Rufus Sewell, Olivia Williams, Mark Gatiss.
Dick Johnson is a good example of how complex and painful everything becomes when the parent begins to lose that axis of lucidity and self-control. Florian Zeller’s film also manages to capture it wonderfully from the perspective of the one who suffers from the disconnection with reality and his environment, exquisitely using montage or production design to subtly capture the confusion. It provides the perfect space for Anthony Hopkins to do some of his most heartbreaking and lofty work.
See in Movistar+ | Criticism in Espinof