One person’s clutter is another’s treasured memories. When we die, what do we leave behind for those we love and will they see them as the former or the latter? These are the questions raised by A Nice Little Film About a Nice Little Death as director Julia Mendoza Friedman records the last days before the passing of her ninety-five-year-old grandmother Irma and the aftermath.
An apartment on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan has been the home of Irma for an unknown number of years, but from the looks of her comfortable décor, it has been decades. She is surrounded by the objects she loves that invoke her memories of her life and family. Julia is sometimes exasperated by Irma’s demanding nature but is also very tender and loving toward her. There is a strong bond between them that shines through this touching and sometimes darkly funny tribute.
Friedman places some amusing touches of early childhood drawings and repeated motifs of hourglasses in scenes around her grandmother’s interaction with her and her caregiver, Ellouise. She seems to be a wonderful person who recognizes her aid to the elderly as a calling and recounts how in her native Jamaica, there is the belief that the deceased visit those who will join the soon in dreams. It’s a comforting thought and this film is comforting in suggesting that memories are a kind of immortality for those we must let go.
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