Sundance Review: ‘Alive Inside’ Sings of Music and Memory
Alive Inside is a pitch-perfect documentary that brilliantly explores the transformational effects of music on elders with Alzheimer’s and dementia. A savvy distributor should snap this one up; despite its apparent marketing challenges, the film is emotional, uplifting, hopeful, and action-oriented. Properly handled, it should have a decent theatrical run and good VOD audiences. DVD sales for institutional audiences will also be viable.
Director Michael Rossato-Bennett followed social worker Dan Cohen for three years, for what began as an experiment and became a crusade. Cohen, volunteering to work in a nursing home, discovered that by giving the residents iPods and allowing them to experience the music of their past, their symptoms reduced and even seemed to vanish at times. The extraordinary transformations as 90-year-olds put on headphones and suddenly light up with spirit, moving with joy in ways that seemed impossible just moments before, are among the most emotional in the film.
Unlike many other documentaries crafted today, Alive Inside does not rely on recreations or manipulative tricks. Instead it makes use of the most powerful cinematic presence of all–the human face, in all its complex and unexpected reactions to the world that surrounds us.
The film’s third act broadens out to a critique of America’s elder health care system, and then, in its final ten minutes, does what other “social impact” docs fail to do: it sets forth a demonstrable path for change driven by social media.
It’s impossible not to take this film personally. At the Sundance press and industry screening, which is a notoriously hardened audience, many people had tears rolling down their cheeks as the film touched at the private experiences of memory loss and personality changes in older family members.
Rossato-Bennett’s off-camera narration is eloquent and spare. Cinematography is well-handled, turning rest homes–the least photogenic of places–into locations of power and drama.
Visit the film’s website here.
Image from the film, courtesy Sundance Institute.
Author
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam Leipzig is the founder and CEO of MediaU, online career acceleration. MediaU opens the doors of access for content creation, filmmaking and television. Adam, Cultural Daily’s founder and publisher, has worked with more than 10,000 creatives in film, theatre, television, music, dance, poetry, literature, performance, photography, and design. He has been a producer, distributor or supervising executive on more than 30 films that have disrupted expectations, including A Plastic Ocean, March of the Penguins, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Dead Poets Society, Titus and A Plastic Ocean. His movies have won or been nominated for 10 Academy Awards, 11 BAFTA Awards, 2 Golden Globes, 2 Emmys, 2 Directors Guild Awards, 4 Sundance Awards and 4 Independent Spirit Awards. Adam teaches at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. Adam began his career in theatre; he was the first professional dramaturg in the United States outside of New York City, and he was one of the founders of the Los Angeles Theatre Center, where he produced more than 300 plays, music, dance, and other events. Adam is CEO of Entertainment Media Partners, a company that navigates creative entrepreneurs through the Hollywood system and beyond, and a keynote speaker. Adam is the former president of National Geographic Films and senior Walt Disney Studios executive. He has also served in senior capacities at CreativeFuture, a non-profit organization that advocates for the creative community. Adam is is the author of ‘Inside Track for Independent Filmmakers
’ and co-author of the all-in-one resource for college students and emerging filmmakers
'Filmmaking in Action: Your Guide to the Skills and Craft' (Macmillan). (Photo by Jordan Ancel)
- music
- movies
- sundance
- independent film
- films
- memory
- documentaries
- Sundance coverage
- Alive Inside
- Alzheimer's
- dementia
- elders
- health care
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