Wonderful idea falls victim to arrogant and disrespectful filmmakers

trspamfile

As a genealogist I loved the premise: an archeological dig in their late grandmother's house: so much to be learned about who someone truly was from their documents and artifacts. But watching the documentary it's almost as if these filmmakers think they have nothing left to learn about their grandmother because they filmed interviews with her. The artifacts they find are just objects to them for some stylized filmmaking. There's no attempt to learn anything new or understand their grandmother on a deeper level. What did she leave out in their interviews? Who was she as a young lady without their grandfather: the part of herself her grandchildren might not see? The parts she didn't think were important or didn't remember?

You certainly can't say anything was left out to preserve her dignity. As nearly every other reviewer has mentioned, a particularly offensive scene shows the filmmakers' mother (a spot-on impression of Suzy from Curb Your Enthusiasm complete with the f-bombs) patronizing her nearly 90-year-old mother into taking off her clothes down to her bra and panties on camera to try on one of her old dresses. Grandma is clearly uncomfortable but no one is interested in what Grandma wants or how Grandma feels. At a certain point I couldn't watch any more and had to fast forward. The inclusion of this footage in the documentary shows no respect for the subject and makes her daughter and grandchildren look manipulative and exploitative.

I can't help but feel this is more about the filmmakers' feelings than their grandmother or any aspect of her as a person, and this is reinforced by their constant need to insert their unrelated personal details into the documentary (nobody cares about you going to school in Rome). I think this was a great premise for a documentary wasted on filmmakers who were too arrogant to think they had anything left to learn about their grandmother, or that they owed her any kind of dignity in death.

score 3/10

trspamfile 16 August 2020

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5999143/