“Time Passages” is a deeply personal documentary where director Kyle Henry “time travels,” as his mother’s health declines from late-stage dementia in a race to resolve their relationship before it’s too late. The film represents themes of caregiving, dementia and grief. The film team is also partnering with Caring Across Generations, an organization dedicated to building care systems, the Chicago Department of Family & Support Services, Illinois Family Caregiver Coalition and Age Options in an effort to elevate the conversation around eldercare.
In the final months of his mother Elaine’s illness, as a pandemic rages across the globe, Kyle time travels via his family archives and his own memories to find connection to his family, history and the world at large. As one of Elaine’s primary caregivers, the son shares a unique and complicated bond in their large, Texan family.
Beneath the Kodachrome smiles and grainy Super-8 home movies, Kyle unearths difficult truths as an act of generational healing and a testament to love, legacy and those things that carry us through life’s most challenging times.
This was such a sad film showing the ravages of dementia and the attempt to string together old memories and present attempts to reconcile a relationship that seems to have been strained.
The mixed media used in telling the story of Kyle’s mother, from her birth and her parents, to her meeting her hubby on a blind date on New Years Eve, and to having five children gave a great Kodak photo, so to speak.
Living with and dying from complications of memory loss and dementia is hard enough, but to have this happen during the beginning of the COVID shutdown made for a horrible experience.
Kyle touches on the financial aspects of caring for a senior in a nursing home—he chronicles the homes that his parents had purchased throughout the years in Ohio and Texas. And lastly reflecting on having to sell the last home to support the assisted living unit where his mom was staying.
He mentioned the toll that this financial burden also places on African American families. I suppose looking at it as maybe the only inheritance that many from this population may have to pass on to heirs.
At one point, he mimics a meeting with his mom where she tells him that life is a series of small decisions and that he needed to go on with his life—even in the absence of her own.
Although a sad story, it could be inspiration for others who may be facing issues with elder care, especially if the elders are relegated to nursing home care.
The ending brightened up a bit, and Kyle does a black-tie number to remember his mother’s love for their sing-alongs, with a promise of meeting her again.
Look for “Time Passages” from February 7 through February 9 at Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St., and the Block Museum in Evanston on February 13.