“It Is Not Over Yet” is an immersive, life-affirming journey into the day-to-day rhythm of a controversial nursing home for people with dementia in Denmark.
“It Is Not Over Yet” opens with an elderly woman doing some simple knitting while answering questions from a younger caregiver. We soon learn that the caregiver is a staff member at Dagmarsminde, a progressive end-of-life facility in Denmark for patients in varying stages of dementia.
Early on – and indicative of the theme – a resident name Rita passes peacefully in her bed. Later, her simple wood coffin is wheeled away as the residents sing her favorite song. They toast her passing with a spirit of goodwill.
Such is the tender charm that infuses this insightful film. May Bjerre Elby, chief administrator and founder of Dagmarsminde, speaks to a small audience about her early experience working in a nursing home – its unpleasantness, the drab furnishing, the ubiquitous odor of urine, and the negativity of the unhappy staff.
When her father succumbed to dementia, Elby watched him steadily deteriorate for five years until he was forced to relocate to a nursing home – the same one that she had worked at years ago. After only five months, he died from chronic neglect. Her experience led her to establish a new type of facility. She saved up for seven years until she was able to convert an old joinery into Dagmarsminde, an elegant yet modest home furnished not only with basic tables and chairs, but also lovely second-hand china cups, saucers, and plates.
Essentially, the narrative lays out a series of intertwined vignettes about the residents of Dagmarsminde. The principal storyline centers on an elderly couple about to be admitted. The wife, Vibeke, struggles with advanced Alzheimer’s. Her husband, Torkild, in the earlier stages of the disease himself, thinks he is there to assist Vibeke, not realizing that he will live there also. He gamely looks on as the staff help Vibeke into bed – the overseer of sorts, or so he believes.
The children leave dad in charge of aiding mom to walk again, and also assure him that they will look after his home until the couple returns. He soon forgets this, however, and asks who will mind the household while he’s away. He alternates easygoing small talk with complaints to the staff about how they run the place.
Torkild and Vibeke are both former pharmacists. Though Torkild idolizes Vibeke, who ran a larger operation, he now also becomes rude and angry with her because of her deteriorating mental capacity. Sadly, he fails to perceive his own early-stage Alzheimer’s condition.
Torkild and Vibeke’s children resisted the idea of placing their parents in a traditional nursing home, where the average daily number of medications delivered is ten, compared to one at Dagmarsminde. Elby and her staff eschew sedatives, antidepressants, and antipsychotic drugs.
The daily regimens are quite pleasant. Afternoon coffee, a different type of pastry from one day to the next, and regular celebrations of all sorts – whether birthdays, anniversaries, or something about the Danish queen. Hardly lavish yet very livable and stimulating to the senses.
The rooms have no televisions – instead, the elderly pass the time socializing amongst each other, or interacting and receiving care from the staff. An old couple at lunch discusses their past – their children, their jobs, perhaps a bit of infidelity – all with a soft warmth and relaxed manner of two people in the twilight of life.
The occupants sometimes exhibit brief outbursts of violent actions due to frustration or confusion but are quickly forgotten. Nonetheless, the staff analyzes such occurrences in order to determine causes and take prescriptive measures for the future.
One of the patients named Inger is slowly fading away, increasingly non-responsive. Yet no heroic measures are employed to keep her alive, just kind gestures of attentiveness. Patients are treated as individuals. The presumption that people near death should not be forced or encouraged to eat in order to satisfy is refreshing. Eventually, Inger passes peacefully, duly acknowledged by patients and staff alike.
Film director Louise Detlefsen juxtaposes videos and photos from the residents’ youth in order to highlight the vibrancy they once possessed. Her documentary begs the question of what debt is owed to human beings who can no longer tend themselves.
Eleven souls, all in various stages of decline, are cared for in ways that improve their quality of life. Elby fosters a feeling of community in this small group that gently invigorates the senses. The staff lives among the patients as much as they perform services for them. They initiate conversation and even periodically philosophize about life.
Unpretentious pastimes such as sitting by a fire and listening to the crackle of burning evergreens offers as good a way to spend the evening as any. By the end of the film, even grumpy old Torkild comes to a suitable accommodation with his new surroundings.
As societies in developed countries age, perspectives raised in the film can serve as a guide to the typical approach often employed in for-profit facilities, notably in the U.S. Providing such an important service to fellow humans need not always be reduced to an economic transaction subject to quarterly earnings calls from investors. This empathetic documentary goes inside a place unlike most others nursing care homes. It is a reminder that many of us will find ourselves in similar situations one day and can only hope for the kind of compassion that Elby and her devoted staff offer.
“It Is Not Over Yet” will have its World Premiere at the 2021 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on April 29th
10k
20k
1.5k
2.2k