I chose this largely because it was the shortest movie on my Netflix list, at 89 minutes, and I got a late start that evening. But there were other good reasons to watch. For one, I hadn't seen a documentary in nearly half a year. For another, DJID sounded singular.
Seventh Day Adventist documentarian Kirsten Johnson (whom I knew best as the director of cinematography for This Film Is Not Yet Rated) believes that her father, Dick, in the early stages of dementia, is not long for this world. Her way of coping with this is to have him and a bunch of professionals fake his death by several means, stage a funeral, and depict him in heaven.
Unlike IMDb and Wikipedia, Netflix classifies this partly as a comedy. It's not a mockumentary or even a compromise of sorts, but many of the staged moments are lighthearted. In heaven, anyway. Any humor about the deaths themselves, except maybe for reminders that they're fake, is too dark for my appreciation.
It would be harder to chuckle if Dick were further along. He seems lucid in most scenes, just a little forgetful, and his main sign of physical atrophy is in needing help to stand up. His own comfort with the death scenes varies, but at no point does he ask to call it off or mistakenly believe that a danger is as real as it looks.
We get brief footage of Kirsten's mother, who was at a noticeable stage of Alzheimer's before dying in 2007. No wonder Kirsten dreads what's coming for Dick. There is nothing to laugh at in that scene.
Does the experiment work as therapy for the family? I can't say. TTBOMK, Dick is still alive. For my part, I sometimes imagine personal tragedies, but I doubt it truly braces me for the real versions. At least the filmmakers appear to be having a little fun, and we never doubt the Johnsons' love.
I may not have learned much from this doc, but I don't mind having seen it. No doubt it speaks more to people who've been in Kirsten's shoes.
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