I watched a 2018 Brazilian film at the Federation of Film Societies of India festival last week called “Before I Forget” director by Thiago Arakilian and the story has stayed with me. A retired judge faces the anxiety of Alzheimer’s onset and chronicles it in his diary. But he doesn’t know how to seek help.
80-year-old Polydoro has done things for everyone till now but now he is losing his faculties. So, instead of talking to his children, he does something unusual, buys a strip club in his locality and refines it an old jazz something with piano playing. He changes the name of the club from “Dance Baby Dance” to something more sophisticated.
The topic isn’t new, neither the treatment is new but the way it was depicted and things were said despite the apparent sexual nature of it was beautiful, specially in the sequences where his son Paulo is forced to learn piano playing in this strip club because the father won’t let him have his mother’s piano otherwise.
It’s rather nice to see Paulo find the emotions of others in that club and play according to the feeling not just reading the score as instructed by his teacher. And how gradually the son comes to terms with his father’s senility.
Utimately, it is a story as much about the son as it is about the father. In his weeks of court-instructed meetings and interactions with his father, Paulo learns a great deal about Polydoro, including how to take care of him. He isn’t there just to practice on his mother’s piano to bag a job at the orchestra but also gets attached to his father. So much so that, towards the end when Polydoro goes missing, Paulo leaves his coveted audition to find him and ultimately swims with him at the beach as per Polydoro’s wish. This is the image the director uses in the film’s poster.
This is the first film where I have seen children arguing of taking guardianship of their parents. They are not fighting for property nor it is for who can take care of the old man better but simply who needs to spend more time with the person.
Also this is the first time, I have seen a film acknowledging when children look after their parents it is “guardianship” and you can legally claim that.
And last but not the least, it also explores what this guardianship means for a grown ass old man who has always lived an upright life and done things for others and never asked for help.
It is Polydoro’s coming to terms that after a certain age you must see your children to be your guardian and not the other way round and finally surrendering to be in the guardianship of his daughter while his son voices support for his free will, is what makes the film.
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