Arts & Life

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THE CENTER

FITNESS CLUES

They Don't
Play Bingo

Monday, April 4, 2005

Exploring Alternative Therapies;

PBS documentary sheds light on

Ancient Arts and Modern Medicine

For Relief from Stress and Menopause

assisted living for old radicals.

Michael Seidman, M.D.
Robert Levine, Ph.D.

ANDREA CARLA MICHAELS

Special to the Jewish News

S

relentlessly optimistic, despite the fact
that her heart attacks have necessitated
a wheelchair. Together, they form a
mutually supportive "train": Alpert
pushing Lloyd's wheelchair with her
cane as they set off for the dining hall.
Lloyd's often-asked question — Are
we connected?" — becomes the heart
of this film.
Sunset is everything a film should
be: political and personal and subtle
— a slice of life you rarely see so inti-
mately.
It's quite funny, in a non-patroniz-
ing way, whether the residents are
singing "Blowing in the Wind" after a
Free Thinkers meeting, or zeroing in

unset Story, a documentary
about an assisted-living facility
in L.A. (Sunset Hall) for aging
radicals, focuses on the friendship
between a 95-year-old Jewish woman
named Lucille Alpert and her best
friend, a Scandinavian gal named Irja
Lloyd — practically a spring chicken
at 80.
Both enter the facility at the same
time and bond because they find
someone like-minded they can talk to.
Both are totally lucid (unlike most
of the other residents).
v
Alpert, a University of Chicago
graduate, spent her life as a social
worker; Lloyd was a special edu-
cation teacher. Still very political,
they go to rallies and demonstra-
tions, register the staff workers to
vote and fret over their pay.
As in other facilities, there's lots
of kvetching over the food and
visits to doctors, but in Sunset
Hall's library, there are large-print
works of Lenin, and "Free
Mumia" signs adorn the bal-
conies outside the rooms.
(Mumia Abu Jamal, a former
award-winning journalist who
exposed police violence against
minority communities has been
on death row since 1982 for the
murder of a police officer.)
Lucille Alpert and Irja Lloyd
Meet Alpert — with thick
glasses, a bad wig, full makeup
on a woman with Alzheimer's who is
and festive scarf —shlepping her purse
trying to explain why she must escape
even to a fire drill. In her younger
the facility to a very patient, loving
years, she was a dead-ringer for Golda
staff worker.
Meir. She punctuates half her sen-
You rarely see documentaries
tences with, "Oy vey," and has a very
dry and caustic deadpan wit. She com- about the elderly as full-blooded
three-dimensional people. Watch
plains that the kitchen staff has never
this one. ❑
heard of tangerines.
Irja — non-Jewish, although she
claims her mother descended from
members of the "Lost Tribe" who
Sunset Story airs as part of PBS's
found their way to Finland — is
Independent Lens series 11 a.m.
Sunday, March 27, on Detroit
Public Television-Channel 56.
Andrea Carla Michaels is a San

-1‘

Seminar will be held at The Jewish Community Center (JCC) - Handleman Hall

7:00-8:30 p.m.

Cost is $10.00 ($8.00 for JCC members).

Please call 313-874-2182 for more information.

949040

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CHASE

ITN

3/24

2005

48

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942260

Francisco-based freelance author.