Flore

French filmmaker Jean-Albert Lièvre's intimate documentary follows his mother Flore's struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Once an active outdoors lover with a talent for painting, Flore found her vitality and strength deteriorating as the disease took control of her body. Unable to care for her at home, Lièvre and his siblings arranged for their mother to be moved to a special-care facility. But this only seemed to make things worse, as Flore's physical and mental condition continued to slide, and the decision to transfer her to another facility only exacerbated the problems. Eventually, Lièvre takes matters into his own hands, bringing his mother to Corsica, where the family had spent many happy summers. Far removed from the monotony of institutional care, Flore basks in the warmth of the Mediterranean climate and begins to show signs of improvement: not only is she able to leave her wheelchair to walk, but she's also cognizant enough to pick up her paints and brushes and resume the artwork that she had abandoned years earlier. While Flore features some excessively artistic flourishes used by Lièvre to illustrate Alzheimer's—most strangely, a giant soap bubble floating through the streets of Paris—this is an otherwise inspiring and timely documentary that points up the limitations and drawbacks of institutionalizing an increasingly elderly population beset by debilitating diseases such as Alzheimer's. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)