Alive Inside (2014)

Music is powerful and the sounds are unpredictable. "Alive Inside" takes us inside some American nursing homes and it shows some of this hidden power and the healing effect of music on patients which suffer different levels of dementia and Alzheimer's. We see through their eyes, how they were kinda dead and, suddenly, smiles and that spark on the eyes. With music, they can live again.The movie is about "Music & Memory", Dan Cohen's nonprofit organization. He brings iPod's and earphones for some patients, and plays their favorite music. The results on screen are fabulous. We know our music carries memories and it defines part of our personality. These patients combat memory loss, by dementia or Alzheimer's, and just by playing the musics, we can see they come up with things they thought were lost. We're exposed to some awakening and delightful moments, with an uplifting atmosphere of hope and joy passed to us, with some sensitive and heart touching scenes. There's too much feeling on it!I believe one of the best points on the documentary is Rossato- Bennett's work on the cinematography. He followed Dan to check and film his job. What he didn't knew until the first days, is that he was going to spent a couple of years with him, and there are some astonishing pictures on the screen. His works on close ups and the pace of the doc are fantastic. But, it's all about the music, and the key point is the soundtrack, made by the collection of some patients music. We travel in time on gospel music, some blues and jazz, classical music. The soundtrack is brilliant. It couldn't be different.Since everything isn't great, there are some important preoccupations with the future shown. The planet is getting older, and we're not prepared to it. There's no interest today on taking care of the elders. Geriatricians are fading and in some years from today, we will see an old population, without the needed assistance. People today don't even seem to care with this. Dan got huge negative feed backs when he was trying to get some donations improve and spread his organization on the country. Here, we see with our eyes, how music affects on people, how it enhances the life of the elders, but we don't even have huge research's on this field. We simply don't care with elderly people.Music is everything. Music is identity and memories. Musics are sad and happy, it hurts, heals. It works on us in deep levels and so many ways we can't even imagine. We all have our musics and our memories, and we're the ones who should protect it. When you forget, you don't leave a memory. You leave yourself, aside on the roads of life, and it's okay. Our brain can't hold on too much information, we need to leave some things on the way, but remember: if you want it back somehow, just play your music. Musics are feelings, and to feel is to be alive.

"Alive Inside", written and directed by Michael Rossato-Bennett. Following the 2014's films on degenerative diseases came this impressive documentary. Unlike medical drugs, the power that the sounds have in our brains and especially when produced with proportion, line, rhythm and all those assumptions of geometry that turn into development and therapy. Almost nothing is known about the real causes but the effects of music are more than obvious, hence all poetic speeches that are made happily around since we are still at the stage of believing and not of knowing. A revolution is about to happen, any day, a revelation. It is touching and I was unable to give less than 10 in 10.

I watched this movie last night. The movie had a few very interesting components. One was the Steve Jobs shuffler device. This very tiny music recording and output device is like the modern day walkman. One can download music onto this device and then at the same time store it in a very easy way. It can store many songs on it. The songs are the thread that pulls the Dementia patient into a memory field and floods of emotion. This idea of using the Apple shuffler music device as a means of re-connecting Dementia patients to their past is a good idea. However - this movie did not show the pros and the cons to the shuffler device. For example, the cord of the headphones could be seen as a means to commit suicide - or choking. And are there not hundreds of methods to improve ones quality of life? Artwork, nature, animals, story-telling, sightseeing, watching movies, listening to the birds outside, fresh air, theatre productions, the list is endless. How can one make changes in the medical system in the United States of America - this is the real question - and the answer is impossibly hard. What would it take to improve the quality of life of sick patients? Would it take a mind-set shift - not only within the Medical America System - but all American Models. If the Pursuit of Happiness was turned upside down - to entail - "it is not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" (JFK) would this create a more coherent balance of humanity - where senior citizens with Dementia - would receive respect versus being written off as sick and demented.

ALIVE INSIDE (2014) **** Docufilmmaker Michael Rossato-Bennett's look at one man's crusade to incorporate music therapy to the aged in nursing homes in America focuses on Dan Cohen, founder of a non-prof organization Music & Memory, details the struggles in finding funding and donors for his life-altering miraculous exercise in tapping into the neglected elderly who are afflicted with Alzheimer's and dementia among others who have lost the capacity to retain identity. The footage of wizened, nearly comatose patients and residents responding to the simple application of a headset with music is astounding to say the least. Joyfully inspirational, heart warming (and breaking) the film's seemingly easy efforts to awaken the human spirit (and for them to remember) is startling just as it is in the fact that it has not been overwhelmingly accepted (but the baby steps are paying off finally). You are simply made of stone if you are not driven to tears while smiling in spite of them. One of the year's best films and a must see.