The Father, a moving film about Alzheimer’s

The protagonist of The father, Anthony Hopkins, has recently won the Oscar for best actor, and stands out for his performance as a veteran actor. We are facing the oldest actor in the history of cinema to be awarded an Oscar, at 83 years old. And talking about his father is talking about his protagonist, Anthony Hopkins, who “makes” the film with his impeccable performance.

The father is a film that shows the reality of Alzheimer’s in first person. Through Anthony’s eyes, We enter a world whose perception fluctuates between the disturbing and the hostile, and sometimes between the affectionate and endearing.

Viewers witness the inexorable deterioration of senile dementia and how the protagonist’s daughter, Olivia Colman, is overwhelmed by her own situation. She also shows us the dilemma of placing her father in a nursing home, when the resources to care for him at home are no longer sufficient.

Different characters, same setting

Throughout the film, the different characters are shown, in the same setting. This is because it is an adaptation of the play of the same name that the director Florian Zeller made in the first instance. Later, he adapted it to the cinema and therefore, the theatrical influence is noticeable in the configuration of scenes.

This scenario is usually the same, although there are variations, they all have a particularity: they are all interior. It also changes the props, a mirror that changes size or custom doors that were made for the film. The setting immerses us in a suffocating atmosphere; The setting plays an important role in the memory and consciousness of the character.

In this way, the film shows us that l The protagonist’s conscience is lost, as his personal objects and the place where he is are lost in the labyrinths of his memory. . Generally, these memory losses are accompanied by a feeling of restlessness and frustration.

On the other hand, different characters appear in the film that represent a challenge for Anthony, since they tell him personal information that he does not know, such as that his daughter is going to live in Paris. These characters enter the film, so that the viewer and protagonist coincide in the perception of misinformation, generating a feeling of unease.

Aphaso-apraxo-agnosic syndrome

Anthony’s illness makes us witnesses of his evolution. Through his own perception of the world, he shows us the syndromic picture of Alzheimer’s disease.

The clinical part is portrayed in the film in a very natural way, just as it manifests in reality. Let’s see a little more about this syndrome.

The prefix “a” in this syndrome means the absence of the function that follows:

Aphasia. It is the loss of the ability to produce or understand language, due to lesions in brain areas specialized in these functions. Mostly, the difficulties that arise have to do with reading and writing.Apraxia. Secondly, the difficulties of carrying out movements with a purpose are manifested. In an advanced stage of the disease, Anthony shows difficulty dressing.Agnosia. Finally, there is agnosia, the lack of knowledge, about one’s identity and that of other people.

Generally, in this last phase, people lose the autonomy that is linked to the loss of awareness of their identity. The aphaso-apraxo-agnosic syndrome is shown in this order and The last syndromic manifestation, agnosia, is the maximum expression of Alzheimer’s.

Implicit memory and explicit memory

Explicit memory is one that includes conscious memories about events, places, people or objects. Implicit or instrumental memory is one in which previous experiences help in the execution of tasks, such as habits, sensitization, classical conditioning, as well as perceptual and motor skills such as riding a bicycle.

In general, the protagonist suffers losses in the long-term memory, in declarative memory (episodic memory – which refers to the loss of memory of past events – and principles of semantic memory). You may also subsequently suffer losses in procedural memory, which is what participates in remembering the motor and executive skills necessary to perform a task.

In the development of the plot, we can observe how the protagonist loses his explicit memory – he does not remember objects or places – and later loses his implicit memory about his habits and skills.

In the agnosia stage, The father focuses on the daughter’s moral dilemma about what to do when your father loses these basic capabilities, and with them, his autonomy.

Besides, The father, referring to his name, reflects the contradictions, achievements and setbacks of the fight for life in such a devastating clinical context such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Maybe the best point of the movie The father be your honesty with the helplessness generated by a disease that advances without giving respite to the patient, nor to the people who care for him.

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