by Erin Free
Worth: $19.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Adelaide, Lucinda and Ann Miller
Intro:
...a singular and utterly unforgettable experience.
Dementia is a dreadful, tragic condition that has insidiously crept its way into families everywhere, causing fissures of sadness, desperation, grief and confusion. Though we all know about it, and many are touched by it, this condition remains largely undiscussed on a wider level. The new Australian documentary Nansie, however, takes the audience right inside the painful world of dementia, but not from a scientific or medical perspective; instead, this is a deeply, profoundly personal experience that places its keen, unflinching but wholly sensitive focus on one beautiful Sydney family. At the same times, however, the film is utterly relatable in its recognisability. Nansie is told simply and economically, but its effect and emotional impact is striking in its quiet power.
Nansie begins with twentysomething sisters Adelaide and Lucinda Miller looking after Ann Miller, their beloved grandmother, or “Nansie”, who played a huge part in their upbringing and remains an essential part of their adult lives. Ann has dementia and lives in an aged care institution, bouncing uncomfortably from periods of lucidity and her characteristic sweetness to moments of confusion, depression and frustrated anger, often unaware of who her granddaughters are, and violently resentful of the help and assistance they provide on a daily basis. For the last few years, Nansie has been telling Adelaide and Lucinda that she leaves her home and goes swimming in the ocean every morning. Though a longtime coastal lover, Nansie never learnt to swim, so Adelaide and Lucinda know this is a dementia-derived flight of fancy. But instead of correcting Nansie, the girls accept these stories, and attempt to connect with their grandmother by taking her on trips to nearby beaches and rockpools.
Wholly embedded within the Miller family, director Anna Trichet-Laurier is allowed extraordinary access here, capturing Adelaide and Lucinda as they struggle with their often aggressive and difficult grandmother, even painfully admitting to each other that there are times when they don’t like Nansie and find it hard to maintain their connection to her. Considering the extraordinary levels of care, love and constant patience that the incredibly big-hearted girls demonstrate for their grandmother, this is literally heartbreaking to watch. There are many stunningly intimate and painful moments like these peppered throughout the documentary, but Nansie never becomes downbeat or depressing. There is great humour and warmth in the Miller family, and that buoys proceedings at every turn. Director Anna Trichet-Laurier and cinematographer Thomaz Labanca also conjure a wonderfully fluid variety of images, creating visual art out of the stunning coastline around Sydney’s Malabar, Coogee and Maroubra. Immersive, moving, candid, truthful and brutally honest, Nansie is a singular and utterly unforgettable experience.
Nansie will screen across Australia during Dementia Action Week in September, for more information, click here.
