When Swedish media personalities Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson decide to get Filip’s ageing father Lars to relive a road trip to the south of France, they don’t bargain for just how much he’s aged. After retiring from teaching French, he’s gradually settled into a housebound state, spending most of his time in an armchair. For Filip it’s hard to bear, given his memory of his father as a vibrant, charismatic man who enjoyed France, wine and the songs of Jacques Brel.
The Last Journey is that rare sort of documentary that is obviously engineered, but has the courtesy to show you how. There’s a lot that happens organically. Lars is clearly just as frail as depicted, and Filip’s overestimation of his abilities nearly stops the film in its tracks with an early fall. As they’d decided to do the road trip in an ancient, tiny Renault, they decide to do some of the early stages of the journey without Lars, letting him recover in hospital while they figure out some more practical logistics. When they finally meet up again at the border of France, we’re treated to some utterly spectacular scenery and some very funny conversations between father and son that pay off beautifully over the course of the film.
The film can be seen as both a reality check on the difficulties of ageing and one’s expectations of the elderly, but also as a loving tribute to a father and a good man. Filip is obsessed with the possibility of reinvigorating his dad by reminding him of events and activities from their youth, but there’s no chance that Lars will suddenly stop needing his walker or assistance lifting a glass to his mouth. In scenes that are often difficult to watch, Filip enjoins Lars to start playing his guitar again or cook his famous ratatouille, only to butt up against the miserable realities of senescence.
What helps sweeten the pill is that Lars is a very good humoured sort of character with some genuine quirks. We’re lucky to see and hear footage of the younger Lars, to contrast it with his present state. He happily takes the wind out of his son’s optimistic sails with witty little rejoinders about his impending demise and always gets a laugh. His admiration of the truculence of the French utterly confounds his son, but leads to a hilarious scene where a street fight is staged Candid Camera-style by the filmmakers. We get to watch Lars watch a woman slap a man on the cheek over a minor traffic dispute, wonder if Filip is overstating the case, and then see a broad smile creep over Lars’s face as he murmurs his approval. It’s really quite magical.
Anyone with elderly parents will find plenty to relate to in this funny, touching film. The Last Journey has its little emotional contrivances and some of the footage is uncomfortably intimate but its points are made: You can’t stop ageing; Don’t give up; Don’t let people slip into neglect; Remind people what they mean to you.
