My wife insisted on adding this one, along with many others, in an Chinese television show introducing a bunch of lesser known animated films from Europe. I dislike those shows as they have no qualms about thoroughly spoiling the films they talk about but I guess they can be useful for getting to know about works that one would never otherwise get to hear about. This one is from Spain, by a director named Ignacio Ferreras who is so new that he doesn’t have his own Wikipedia page yet.
The title translates as Wrinkles and as you might guess this is a film about the aged. Emilio is a long retired former director of a bank branch who has been living with his son’s family. When it becomes apparent that he is suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, they move to a retirement home. There he becomes acquainted with the other residents, including his roommate Miguel who has a habit of scamming cash from the more forgetful or gullible of the old people. As Emilio is uncomfortably forced to get used to the routines of his new life, his condition steadily deteriorates. This manifests in the form of increasing bouts of forgetfulness, the failure of the realization of passing time and finally the loss of basic life skills such as dressing himself every morning.
The film uses a simple but very effective art style that gives each of its elderly characters a distinctive look. Stories about the travails of aging are usually very powerful and Arrugas is no exception: there is a poignant sense of finality even in something so simple as a scene of Emilio’s family packing up his things and selling the apartment after sending him to the retirement home. At the same there is plenty of amusement, even some humor, in the idiosyncratic habits of the residents. One woman imagines that she is always on the Orient Express travelling to Istanbul and sees everyone who visits her as either fellow passengers or train conductors. Another lives in constant of alien abductors around every corner. Miguel justifies his little scams as harmless indulgences of their individual foibles for otherwise they have nothing else to live for. As always however there’s only so far that you can push this as it always feels uneasy to find humor in the helplessness of the aged. There’s nothing funny at all for example in the case of the old man who loves puppies, but keeps losing them, presumably either because they run away or they die.
Still, as good as this film is at capturing the tragedy of growing old especially since it mostly avoids being overly maudlin, it makes too many missteps to be considered truly good. I kept waiting throughout the entire film for Miguel’s backstory to be revealed and was left disappointed. This was a crucial omission in my opinion as the relationship between Miguel and Emilio drives the whole film and Miguel seems to be the only resident of the home who is hale and hearty in both mind and body and one naturally wonders what he is even doing there in the first place. I would also argue that the film conveys mixed messages about how the old should live. On the one hand, the film honestly shows that at some point, people simply stop being able to take care of themselves. That may be sad but it’s undeniable that they need help. On the other hand, it celebrates the characters going out of their way to avoid being moved to assistant living floor of the retirement home and portray that level as a kind of hell. They even come up with ways to deceive the doctors that Emilio’s mental health is less serious than it really is, which to my mind simply prevents him from getting the help and medical attention that he needs.
In the end, while Arrugas is poignant enough to make it a worthwhile watch, it strikes me as being well-intentioned but lacks the kind of research that grounds it in medical reality. The various mental ailments shown here make for a good story but ultimately still comes across as being too optimistic as my wife notes. Frankly speaking, as someone who lives in Malaysia, their depiction of daily life inside a retirement home just isn’t as horrific as the filmmaker seems to trying frame it is and feels about as decent a life as anyone growing old could reasonably hope for.