Movie Review: Documentary ‘The Eternal Memory’ reveals that love is stronger than dementia

By Associated Press

“The Eternal Memory” begins with a confused Augusto Góngora waking up one morning as his spouse of twenty years gently greets him.

“Nice to meet you,” he tells her.

The loving, lyrical Maite Alberdi -directed documentary is the story of 1 man’s decline on account of Alzheimer’s illness, nevertheless it’s a lot extra. It’s a stronger love story and one which tries to say issues a few nation’s collective reminiscence, too.

Góngora, a journalist, creator and TV host, documented the crimes in his native Chile by Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. He and his spouse, actress and tutorial Paulina Urrutia, are the celebrities of “The Eternal Memory,” which paperwork his rising disorientation and unmooring.

It is a really intimate work, navigating the misplaced areas in a ravaged thoughts, the digital camera going into their bed room and even a bathe stall. We watch Urrutia shave her husband, dry him with a towel like a baby and browse to him as they take a stroll.

“I’m someone that has come here to help you remember who Augusto Góngora was,” she tells him.

Alberdi assembled some 40 hours of footage, augmented by 20 extra that Urrutia captured when the couple was alone. The director additionally switches again in time to seize Góngora as a vibrant TV reporter and in house films as a doting dad, his white hair turning black and a mustache immediately sprouting on the youthful man.

It is tough to observe the colourful, articulate man in these previous photos struggling in his final years. He will get confused by his reflection in a glass door — “We know each other,” he tells his spouse. Later, he sobs in frustration: “Something very strange is happening here. Help me, please.”

Throughout is Urrutia, the very definition of a loving partner, affected person and making an attempt to not take it personally that her husband is drifting away and never all the time figuring out who she is.

“My love, you’re never alone. Never. Never,” she tells him.

Urrutia brings her husband to rehearsals for her play — they maintain fingers whereas going over her strains — train collectively, watch an eclipse, spontaneously dance in a gymnasium and rewatch their marriage video. She is all the time making an attempt to drag out recollections, sharpen his thoughts, sooth his outbursts.

The third prong of this movie — following the dementia and the love story — is the reminiscence of Chile. This is maybe the weakest hyperlink in Alberdi’s film, however the one most intriguing. The director tries to attach Góngora’s evaporating reminiscence to that of his nation’s collective forgetting of its Seventies Pinochet trauma. It’s a big leap and never all the time neatly finished, however an admirable try.

What is extra devastating is Góngora’s personal warning about reminiscence loss. In a handwritten inscription to his spouse in one in every of his books he writes: “Without memory, we wander confused, not knowing where to go.”

The couple share tears and laughter as he tries to recollect what they ate on their first date and if he had any youngsters already. “Since we met, you’ve given me so many wonderful things,” he tells her.

Later, he’ll cry over the considered dropping his treasured books. “What if somebody takes my books?” he cries out. “What is happening to me?”

The movie gained the Grand Jury Prize on the Sundance Film Festival this previous January. Góngora died on May 19 at age 71. But he bravely left behind a shifting doc about methods to reside a significant life and methods to combat for dignity even because the thoughts crumbles. And, most significantly, he taught us methods to love and be cherished.
 

“The Eternal Memory” begins with a confused Augusto Góngora waking up one morning as his spouse of twenty years gently greets him.

“Nice to meet you,” he tells her.

The loving, lyrical Maite Alberdi -directed documentary is the story of 1 man’s decline on account of Alzheimer’s illness, nevertheless it’s a lot extra. It’s a stronger love story and one which tries to say issues a few nation’s collective reminiscence, too.googletag.cmd.push(operate() googletag.show(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); );

Góngora, a journalist, creator and TV host, documented the crimes in his native Chile by Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. He and his spouse, actress and tutorial Paulina Urrutia, are the celebrities of “The Eternal Memory,” which paperwork his rising disorientation and unmooring.

It is a really intimate work, navigating the misplaced areas in a ravaged thoughts, the digital camera going into their bed room and even a bathe stall. We watch Urrutia shave her husband, dry him with a towel like a baby and browse to him as they take a stroll.

“I’m someone that has come here to help you remember who Augusto Góngora was,” she tells him.

Alberdi assembled some 40 hours of footage, augmented by 20 extra that Urrutia captured when the couple was alone. The director additionally switches again in time to seize Góngora as a vibrant TV reporter and in house films as a doting dad, his white hair turning black and a mustache immediately sprouting on the youthful man.

It is tough to observe the colourful, articulate man in these previous photos struggling in his final years. He will get confused by his reflection in a glass door — “We know each other,” he tells his spouse. Later, he sobs in frustration: “Something very strange is happening here. Help me, please.”

Throughout is Urrutia, the very definition of a loving partner, affected person and making an attempt to not take it personally that her husband is drifting away and never all the time figuring out who she is.

“My love, you’re never alone. Never. Never,” she tells him.

Urrutia brings her husband to rehearsals for her play — they maintain fingers whereas going over her strains — train collectively, watch an eclipse, spontaneously dance in a gymnasium and rewatch their marriage video. She is all the time making an attempt to drag out recollections, sharpen his thoughts, sooth his outbursts.

The third prong of this movie — following the dementia and the love story — is the reminiscence of Chile. This is maybe the weakest hyperlink in Alberdi’s film, however the one most intriguing. The director tries to attach Góngora’s evaporating reminiscence to that of his nation’s collective forgetting of its Seventies Pinochet trauma. It’s a big leap and never all the time neatly finished, however an admirable try.

What is extra devastating is Góngora’s personal warning about reminiscence loss. In a handwritten inscription to his spouse in one in every of his books he writes: “Without memory, we wander confused, not knowing where to go.”

The couple share tears and laughter as he tries to recollect what they ate on their first date and if he had any youngsters already. “Since we met, you’ve given me so many wonderful things,” he tells her.

Later, he’ll cry over the considered dropping his treasured books. “What if somebody takes my books?” he cries out. “What is happening to me?”

The movie gained the Grand Jury Prize on the Sundance Film Festival this previous January. Góngora died on May 19 at age 71. But he bravely left behind a shifting doc about methods to reside a significant life and methods to combat for dignity even because the thoughts crumbles. And, most significantly, he taught us methods to love and be cherished.