“Dick Johnson is Dead” is a movie made by a daughter about her father that got diagnosed by Alzheimer. It is not only a simple biographical movie. It is her attempt to ease the pain when the inevitable finally knock on their family’s door. 

Documentary movie. The general content would be footages of places, events, photos and interviews. Documentary movie could be boring if its sole intent is to be informative. In this sense, Netflix has done a good job in making interesting documentary movies and distribute it towards a wider audiences. Although I am pretty sure, if one search harder, there are definitely great and interesting documentary movies out there, that hasn’t been caught the attention of mainstream audiences.

The beginning of the movie is a gentle soothing scene, a grandfather spending his time with his grandchildren and daughter. What comes next is a “bang” scene, one scene that would define what you could expect from the rest of the movie. 

Interviews and narrations in documentaries are challenging but when the daughter is the one behind the camera and her dear father is the main subject of the movie, it does wonder. From the start, Kirsten also implies how making of the movie is 100% approved by his father, even enthusiastic and supportive about it. That’s why as the movie progress, one doesn’t have to wonder whether she “exploits” her father stories to make big buck or not. 

The director loves the protagonist with all her heart. So the most obvious “brainwashing” she wants to do is getting the audiences to admire her father. She does it brilliantly. For those who has healthy relationship with their fathers, after seeing this movie, they would give a call to their father immediately. For those who has estranged relationship with their fathers, they would wish that their fathers have at least half the traits that Dick Johnson has.

Talking about death is always challenging. One would think, when you talk about death, it seems you are inviting it to come and you definitely don’t want that. Is talking about death only feasible for those who has dealt with grief, who has near death experiences or medical health workers? Human always tries to have explanation for anything inexplicable, including death. This movie is not offering any new explanation about death. It offers you one of the option to deal with death, looking them in the eyes and say, ” I know you will come. I know you will take me or my loved ones away. I do fear you. But I have my yesterday and my today, so I will not be paralyzed by the unknown of tomorrow.” 

As much as the movie is a tribute to her father, it’s inevitable that along the way, we also get to know the director, Kristen Johnson. After all she also narrates the movie. The narration is her attempt to put into words what her thought, worries and hopes are, especially, regarding his father. 

It would be so easy if loving only gave us the beautiful, but what loving demands is that we face the fear of losing each other. That when it gets messy, we hold each other close. And when we can, we defiantly celebrate our brief moments of joy.

Kristen Johnson