"I can’t keep away from her" is what Grant Anderson plaintively says about his wife Fiona when he has to enter her to a hospice caring for people with Alzheimer’s disease. Grant and Fiona have lived happily for 44 years when the dread degenerative sickness comes to Fiona, still lovely, still chic, still able to ski, still happy to be made love to. But they both notice her forgetfulness; he has to paste labels on cupboards to indicate where crockery etc is to be stored. This because she places a frying pan in the frig after they’ve washed up the dinner things.

The story of the film

It is Fiona’s decision to enter the nursing home and though a visit to the place convinces Grant that she will be well looked after, he has doubts and persuades her to continue at home with him. But she indicates it’s better for both, and perhaps expecting a cessation to the progress of the disease, he consents. On the first day he leaves her at the hospice and on several other occasions, he says: "I can’t keep away from her," most often to a worker in the hospice who spends many a caring hour talking to him and counseling him. This is a truth that often the caregiver needs greater care and counseling than the mentally ill one since the latter is cushioned by her degenerating brain from reasonable thought and worrying emotions.

Fiona starts caring very tenderly for a male patient and almost ignores Grant when he visits her. He is troubled and disappointed for sure, but goes along with watching her love develop for the wheelchair bound man gone beyond her in the disease.

He grabs every opportunity and situation to convince the caregivers in the hospice that his wife is not so ill, and not to be removed to a ward upstairs. He says Fiona remembered an incident of long ago when he drove her to the hospice; he says she was always unusual and different. "She proposed marriage to me when she was just 19." But sympathetic though his listeners are, they say Fiona is very much in the clutches of Alzheimer’s.

The story continues to show how fairly soon Fiona has to be shifted upstairs where the more ill patients are who need constant attention. Grant fights against this move, until he has to give in. She lies hunched in bed, the woman who was so alive. Finally he brings the wheel-chaired man to visit Fiona hoping it would help her regain interest in life. He says at the door he wants a minute alone with his wife. She recognizes and responds to him immediately and tells him how much she appreciates his love and care. "You could so easily have drifted away from me. You could so easily have kept away from me…" The film ends with Grant and Fiona tightly in each others arms.

Disturbing and beautiful

The film certainly was disturbing, but not depressing. It made one cry to see such a beautiful and vibrant woman deteriorate to a curled bundle in a hospital bed. But the bravery of the human spirit and the fact that love really can transcend all leaves one with a positive message.

The film was gloomy due, I am sure, to some defect in the projection at the Russian Centre. I’ve experienced this before. The story is set in Canada and most in winter. But snow is bright as it reflects the sun. Not so in the film, so I blame it on the projection. One missed some of the dialogue, which is so important in the film, not due to accents but again, I blame the sound system which is tied up to projection.

The Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent gives a remarkable portrayal of the understanding and most supportive husband.

The film was released in 2007 but re-released recently due to Julie Christie winning the Golden Globe and BAFTA and contending for the Academy Award for best actress.

The film was preceded by a short clip on a male Alzheimer sufferer whose wife visits him and gives him immense love and encouragement . It was very poignant and one could not help but sob at how this dread disease creeps in on otherwise healthy people, not all old either, and causes their utter degeneration to incapacity both mental and physical. It is said to be the third killer in Australia and will soon top the list. Research goes on apace, especially now with DNA tinkering, but Alzheimer’s will be a scourge to humans, specially the elderly for long to come.

An interesting news item I read in a foreign newspaper was that Sandra Day O’Connor, a US ex-Supreme Court judge, entered her Alzheimer affected husband to a residential nursing home. He fell in love with another inmate and seemed to thrive. So O’Connor positively encouraged the relationship. The news item commented that people are living longer and thus love continues well beyond the age that was considered romantic. What a remarkable and wonderful substitute for medicines and a fillip to life and living –love, I mean!

Julie Christie

The film is adapted from a short story of Alice Munro titled; The Bear came over the Mountain. Direction was a first time for Canadian Sarah Polley who, being a friend of Julie Christie, had the film script written with Julie in mind. But this great star is in semi retirement in her farm in Wales and had to be coaxed and prised out to play the part of Fiona. She does it exceedingly well and so won a Golden Globe Award and the BAFTA award in early February for best actress. The British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) is a prelude to the American Oscars. Julie Christie has already been nominated for the 2007 Oscar for best performance of a female actor in a leading role.

Julie Christie has been nominated four times earlier and won an Oscar for her performance in Darling (1965). She

is best remembered for her role as Lara Antipova in Dr Zhivago with the then heartthrob Omar Sharif in the title role. I liked her best in Heat and Dust set in India where this modern day girl finds herself experiencing love and a pregnancy just as an ancestor of hers had done long ago. The story was by Ruth Jabhwalla.

Christie has a link to India from birth, having been born on April 14, 1941, in Assam to a tea planter father and Welsh painter who was a childhood friend of Richard Burton’s.

She has a brother and a half sister from a relationship her father had with an Indian mistress. Her parents divorced when Julie was a little girl. She recently married (at age 66) her long time partner, the Guardian journalist Duncan Campbell. It’s her first marriage and she continues her retreat in her Welsh farm since the 1970s.

The Lanka Alzheimer’s Foundation

"To do all that is possible to improve the quality of life of those afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders and support their families and carers to cope with the challenges generated by those conditions" is the mission statement of the Lanka Alzheimer’s Foundation (LAF). They claim on their brochure: "We can make a difference!" and they surely must since their mission statement includes related debilitating and degenerative dementia, and help given families and carers.

A couple of statistics are included in the brochure, worthy of quoting here. It is estimated that Sri Lanka has around 2 million persons over age 60. That’s 10% of total population. This figure will rise to 4 million in 2020. Just about everyone over 60 may get dementia. Currently the prevalence of dementia is 100,000 to 120,000 persons. It affects over 24 million worldwide.

The brochure goes on to list first signs of degenerative dementia; and how to make life easier for carers. LAF was founded in 2002 while the world body – Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) - has been active since 1984 and serves 60 national associations around the world. The back cover of the brochure tells you how you can help as an individual; as an institution; or as a NGO. To individuals it says:

* Enrol as a friend

* Volunteer time and/or donate

* Help to set up branch activities and support groups

* Support our projects and donate your professional time.