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Ageing identities and narratives of loss: (Re)Contextualising cognitive degeneration in ‘reel’ space and ‘real’ lives

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Abstract

The ageing/aged subject across different socio-cultural, legal, economic, and medical discourses has been imagined and defined as an ‘othered’ body marked with the differences of incapacitation, loss, and decay. Cognitive impairment is considered to be a potent signifier moulding elderly lives that leave them bereft of autonomy, agency, and choice. Alzheimer’s, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease are the most commonly found progressive cognitive disabilities that incapacitate individuals mentally and physically, making them a redundant subject of care. The rupture from the state of ‘actual’ being to a ‘blurred’ existence, arising from being subjected to a state of dependency, scars the essence of their selfhood, alienating them further from the family/society. This article, through a detailed explication of the cinematic portrayal of Alzheimer’s in two films—Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara (I Did Not Kill Gandhi) (2005) and Mai (Mother) (2013)—attempts to re-engage with how the age-induced disease, often correlated with insanity and incompetence, negates the embodied subjectivity of the patients. Through an alternative reading of the ‘subject bodies’, these films challenge the normative understanding of how cognitive degeneration foists a symbolic death on the ‘living’ patient thereby foregrounding the need for special assistance and inclusive treatment. The article also probes the gendered act of caregiving which gets reiterated through the films and projects the adult daughter as the primary caregiver in an integrative manner. Thus, by analysing the elderly parent–adult daughter relational exchange, the article suggests how the reality around Alzheimer’s/senile dementia gets determined for the cared-for subject and the caregiver.

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Notes

  1. Richard Rushton, The Reality of Film: Theories of Filmic Reality (Manchester University Press 2011) 5.

  2. Ibid. 8.

  3. Ibid. 10–11.

  4. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings (Oxford University Press 2009) xvii.

  5. In films like Koshish (Effort) (1972) and Iqbal (2005).

  6. In films such as Sparsh (Touch) (1980), Fanaa (Annihilation) (2006), and Kaabil (Capable) (2017).

  7. In movies like Main Aisa Hi Hoon (I Am Like This) (2005), My Name Is Khan (2010), and Barfi (2012).

  8. Like Black (2005), and U Me Aur Hum (You Me and Us) (2008).

  9. Hilde Lindemann, ‘Second Nature and the Tragedy of Alzheimer’s’ in Lars-Christer Hydén, Hilde Lindemann, and Jens Brockmeier (eds), Beyond Loss: Dementia, Identity, Personhood (Oxford University Press 2014) 18.

  10. The term ‘embodied selfhood’ involves identities and their subsequent lifestyles arising from a collectively shared form of bodily distinctions, facilitating one in understanding how particular bodies look, act, or both in a socio-cultural context. See Paul Higgs and Chris Gilleard, Ageing, Dementia and the Social Mind (Wiley Blackwell 2017) 9.

  11. Jahnu Barua, Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara (written by Jahnu Barua and Sanjay Chauhan, Curtain Call Co. and Radical Entertainment Company 2005).

  12. Mahesh Kodiyal, Mai (written by Mahesh Kodiyal and Manoj Tapadia, AMG Worldwide Entertainment, Alliance Entertainment and Rhythm D’vine Entertainment 2013).

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Acknowledgements

We are extremely grateful to Editor-in-Chief Prof C Raj Kumar and to the special issue editors, especially Prof Shivangi Gangwar, for her support and advice throughout. We also thank the reviewers for their observations, comments, and recommendations that immensely enriched this article.

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  1. Indian Institute of Technology Patna, Patna, India

    Debashrita Dey & Priyanka Tripathi

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Dey, D., Tripathi, P. Ageing identities and narratives of loss: (Re)Contextualising cognitive degeneration in ‘reel’ space and ‘real’ lives. Jindal Global Law Review 13, 329–346 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41020-022-00179-4

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