28/06/2021 - Greek director Christos Barbas' film documents two months in a locked-down nursing home for the elderly during the first wave of the pandemic, and is an enjoyable watch with a humane message

During the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic, a nursing home for the elderly in Agios Stefanos, north of Athens, went into full lockdown for two months. The staff took tests and locked themselves in with the residents, thus ensuring a fool-proof quarantine for their share of the most vulnerable segment of the population. Three weeks before the end of this period, director Christos Barbas and cinematographer Michalis Geranios joined them to document the first such known case globally, which resulted in the film Through the Window Glass [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which has just world-premiered at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.

In a combination of observation and interviews with the care home's team and residents, Barbas easily pinpoints the main themes connected with such institutions, how we perceive old age and live through it, and how the doctors, nurses and other staff deal with their jobs in both regular and extraordinary circumstances.

This particular nursing home is probably better off than other such establishments. It is clean, has recently been renovated and is well equipped, and the staff are friendly and kind to the patients. As one nurse says, during this period, they have all really become a family, which, in a way, compensates for the fact that she is spending so much time away from her actual family. In a scene where we see nurses during their downtime, most of them seem to agree that they actually feel better here than they would on the outside. The freedom of normal life has been so heavily disrupted by the pandemic-related measures that they find their intentionally limited environment liberating: here, at least you know exactly why you are isolated.

A staff gerontologist explains how we look at old age in the wrong way. Old people are not “the other”; they are us in several decades’ time. They require more than just food, sleep and being clean, and just because they are old, it does not mean they do not have other needs like the rest of us. In a particularly joyous scene, the residents get the chance to travel to the islands or their hometowns – via VR headsets.

The patients themselves are presented in the most dignified way possible, whether they are doing their daily physical or mental exercises, or are talking about their favourite films, music or their lives. “I think at this age, there is only past, no present,” says a very lucid old lady. When she is reminded that she is still here, she agrees, but her eyes reveal a melancholy that she knows is her true state. One of the residents used to be a Lamborghini dealer, another worked in air traffic control, and even though they are definitely not their former selves, one can tell their spirit is very much alive.

When they are visited by their families, the latter stay on the other side of the window and they talk on the phone (at another point, the staff open the door and maintain a two-metre distance between them). When they place their hands on the glass to “touch” each other, it is inevitably touching for the viewer as well.

A well thought-out and executed concept, Through the Window Glass is inevitably sentimental, but not saccharine. If there's a film in which a solo piano score (composed by the director himself) really fits, it's this small, unpretentious documentary. Striking a good balance between its themes and its protagonists, it is an enjoyable watch with a humane message. It was produced by Greece's Timeline Productions.