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Allan King explores the effects aging has on the mind in his newest documentary. (Dave Abel, Sun) |
Documentary filmmaker Allan King seeks the truth in his heart-breaking films about the human condition, although he believes he will never find it.
"There is no such thing as truth -- that's why we prize it so dearly," the quiet-spoken, open-hearted Torontonian tells the Sun just as his latest gut-wrenching documentary, Memory For Max, Claire, Ida And Company, makes its premiere today at the Toronto film festival.
Memory explores the lives of eight elderly residents of the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in Toronto. All have difficulties with memory, thus losing parts of their lives, their identities, even their families.
Each of the key players in this real-life drama struggles to maintain a balanced life while "the truth" slips from his or her grasp. In one case, a woman keeps forgetting that her best friend in the Centre fell down and died. Each time she hears about the tragedy, she gets emotional again. But the woman is in denial because she is too much in anguish to deal with it, King says.
"We treasure truth as much as life itself. The fact is, we never know it, we never get it. Finally, it doesn't really matter if you remember actually what has happened because your version of it is your version of it."
One of the most important things the Vancouver-born King learned while filming Memory is that an outsider's approach is crucial. "If you're going to be useful to a person who is having cognitive difficulty, pressing them is the worst thing to do. "It is not generally understood that people who are having difficulty with memory have anxiety. The more anxiety, the more de-skilled the person is. So, if you keep trying to push a person who is having difficulty remembering, the more anxious they get and the memory disappears and they may get angry."
King shows this dynamic without ever talking about it on screen. There is no narration, as usual, in a King film. There is no attempt to lead the audience into a judgmental position. The film lets us see for ourselves.
"I found the people as interesting as anybody I have ever filmed," King says. "I always find the human condition absolutely fascinating. It is dumbfounding to me."
He had no set agenda going in. "In making a film, at the beginning you don't know what's going to happen. I don't think that I can explore a field if I have a position on it. The (goal) is to get as close to the experience as you can get." Quoting a colleague, King adds: "The important thing is to experience the experience."
Even after finishing Memory, he finds himself searching for meaning. "Surprisingly, I don't really understand what I've done," he says modestly. "My sense of what we've gotten in a film shifts as I get to know the film better. For this film, I didn't really get that I could hear and understand what was being said by the people until my fifth screening of the finished film."
King is a pioneer of "actuality drama." His early pieces, Skid Row (1956), Warrendale (1967) and A Married Couple (1969) were Canadian landmarks. More recently, he has continued at the highest level, including with filmfest entries Dying At Grace (2003) and now Memory.
At 75, King keeps working. The truth may be elusive, even impossible to find, but he keeps looking for it.
