Starring:
Distributor: Madman Films
Runtime: 93 mins. Reviewed in Aug 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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Oma is Dutch for grandma. This documentary is about Hendrika van Genderen who, in her late 80s, is cared for by her film-making son, Jason, his nutritionist wife, Megan, and their children. It chronicles her gradual decline – physical and mental – and the demands of care.
What would we do without a quick reference to Google? Checking Oma, we find it is the Dutch word for grandmother, granny, grandma.
Director Jason van Genderen’s Oma is Hendrika, nickname Puck, a migrant long since from Holland. In 93 minutes we get to know her well. In fact, this quite genial old lady, as the title indicates, represents everybody’s granny, grandma. But there is also the serious side of this portrait of ageing, dementia and family response.
Many audiences watched 100 Days with Tata on Netflix, a cheerful show with Spanish comedian-director, Miguel Angel Munox, having to care for his great grand aunt, into her 90s, especially during the several months of Covid lockdown in 2020. Miguel offered his time and loving attention to Tata, not without a great deal of stress. Lockdown occurred in rather confined spaces in an apartment, but Miguel devised ways of filming her, posting the films and creating an international sensation, with fans galore, all over the world. But it ended at the end of the lockdown.
Van Genderen also began filming his mother during those same lockdown months of 2020. He and his nutritionist wife, Megan, and their children, had been devoted to Oma but found, as she was growing older (and we see a number of the short films that Jason had made over the years to preserve the memories of his mother, his father, John and his final terminal illness), she could not live by herself. They made a unit for her in their home. Delightfully, because they had to stay at home and not go shopping, they bought a whole lot of goods, set them up in the kitchen with a Coles sign, and took Oma shopping. And filmed it. And posted it. And, viewers all over the world, were eager to see more of Oma and how she was faring in lockdown.
However, the dementia increased. Oma had a number of falls and injuries, suffered more and more bewilderment. Jason and Megan had to take time off as constant supervision and help was needed, especially cooking meals and feeding Oma. This is a film about family devotion, while not underestimating the toll that such constant care takes on son and daughter-in-law, as well as the children. At times, in the social media clips, Jason seems to be ordering his mother around – which brings a deluge of hurtful critical comment.
The impact of this documentary will be on sons and daughters, sharing the experience of Jason and Megan, the demands of constant care, visits to hospital, reluctant to go to respite care, but Oma’s age, physical condition, mental bewilderment, become almost too much. The couple have to make a serious decision about their ability and inability to care for Oma, and surrender her to more expert care (transferring some of her furniture and knickknacks to the respite care room before she arrives to make sure she feels more at home).
With the discussions in Australia about the pressures on nurses, on those who work in aged care, the increasing burnout, the numbers leaving, this picture of care for Oma reminds us of how serious the kind of care that the elderly need is, and the demands on the carers.
An observation. This reviewer is getting old and so watching a film like this, the decreasing of physical strength, the onset of dementia, is a challenge to appreciate – and be ready, perhaps – for one’s own physical and mental decline.
By the end of the film, with empathy for Oma and her decline, for Jason and Megan and their children and their caring commitment, we appreciate more and more the reality of ageing, dementia, and the need for care.
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