“1,2,3, Once Again” by Vasco Diogo

The power of cinema lies also in his permission to ponder and live inside situations that, if they don’t directly happen to us, we would never see from this close. In this particular case we are talking about a disease, Alzheimer, that we would experience only if somebody we know and love has it, and we would ignore it if this doesn’t happen.

“1,2,3, Once Again” by Vasco Diogo gives us the possibility to live inside a small community in which is taking place a therapeutic program of sessions mediated by music with Alzheimer patients, giving us the chance to watch for ourselves what happens in this context.

It’s experimentalism lies in the brief black and white outlined sequences in which it looks like the patients are getting progressively similar to ghosts: these sequences are disturbing in a positive content-wise way because they really make us feel and experience their inner dimension.

During these slowed-down, ghost-like scenes we begin to feel what this disease means, and we try to heal ourselves from this sensations in the latter sequences, when therapy is kind of interacting with us too, making us feel this disease on our own skin.