ABSTRACT
The Last Postcard (2009) and Twilight of a Life (2015) are two documentary films by Sylvain Biegeleisen, made seven years apart, that focus on his relationship with his mother at two different points in her (and his) life. The earlier film depicts their relationship when the mother is 87 and fully in command of her mental and physical capacities, the latter when the now 94-year-old is completely bed-ridden and not always lucid. My discussion follows the developmental trajectory of care relationships that moves from a personal to meta-personal mode of relationship. It highlights old age and dementia as an expression of “other-wise” personhood: a state of lost hierarchies, social as well as inter-personal, and the egalitarian sense-centredness that potentially emerges instead. Moving beyond the accepted role of a child-cum-caretaker, the caring assumes another, more pertinent role: that of participant observer. Twilight of a Life shifts into a contract of relationality and caring. What distinguishes it as a creative portrait of the very old living with dementia is its humanistic normalisation of old age.
