BIO

Maia Debowicz was born in 1985 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She’s a fan of action films, and divides her time between film criticism and visual arts. She was published in Pez Dorado Magazine, and collaborated with reviews in the websites House Cinema and A Sala Llena. She is regularly published in the magazines El Amante, Haciendo Cine, Loop and Letras Libres (Mexico). In 2013 she participated as a Jury in the 8th La Plata Latin American Film Festival (Fesaalp) and the 2nd Comunidad Zoom Online Film Festival. When she grows up, she wants to be like Helen Mirren.

Old age just has a bad name

If there is one feature most human beings share, it is the fear of old age. The creases that make their way in the skin and mimic the doodles traced by the wheels of a tractor in the wet sand are seen as a deadly sentence where limitedness becomes palpable. As if life ended by its own choice, far before it was agreed upon. And so, the Cinderella-like outfits fearful seniors wear turn into frayed pieces of fabric hours before midnight, because magic only exists when you believe in it.

“Nobody comes to terms with being old because nobody knows how to be old, like a tree or a precious stone,” claimed Silvina Ocampo. Luckily, this world is also inhabited by brave old people who confront death and even spit in its skeletal face. They live every day like it’s their last, as if they were a teenager who wears false teeth instead of braces.

The focus Old age just has a bad name presents seven films that portray this minority of passionate seniors who use their cane as a sword to fight pirates in their next adventure. Grandparents who feel younger than their grandchildren and rock every morning until the day they breathe their last anise-flavored breath. Challenging John Cassavetes, who said it was much easier to film young than old people, these directors prefer wrinkles to smooth, spot-free skin, and thus, confirm that subject itself isn’t as important as how you address it. Short films and feature films, fictions and documentaries that perfume our eyes with the scent of fruit-flavored candy that emanated from the hands of our grandparents, the ones we had and wish we still had. But above all, they strip away the fear of leaving adulthood and becoming seniors, since the slouchy leading men and women of these stories are not only dreamers but doers. They can travel to Mars in a broken-down vehicle, tap dance while channeling Ginger Rogers’s charisma, give soccer player legs to a bunch of buttons, or shoot a western that is every bit as good as a John Ford one.

When there’s nothing to lose, beyond the time that moves in fast motion, the fear of making a mistake becomes the size of a chrysoperla. The happy ending of the focus Old age just has a bad name lies in the fact that it doesn’t matter how many more seconds the oldsters who inhabit these films live, since they’ll never die. Cinema was, is, and will always be Grim Reaper’s ultimate enemy.