Alive Inside is an incredibly moving plea to improve the lives of our elders by providing them access to the music that defined their lives and identities.  Unfortunately this is being billed as a documentary about awakening one’s authentic inner person (which is being obscured by dementia or Alzheimer’s) with music.  I would love to see a film which examines the neurobiological processes by which music unlocks our memories and emotions!  What we are left with in Alive Inside is a stirring thesis on improving the quality of elder care, which is a worthy topic, but you could hardly call this slick, overly-styled telethon a documentary.

 

All Movies: 5/10

2 comments on “Alive Inside”

1. Lydia Spitzer

   November 26, 2018

   

   This is very exciting, because I just yesterday learned about ASMR, or Autonomous Meridian Sensory Response, which is related to how we sometimes experience music, and this was all in the context of an article about how connecting people with the music they love can bring them out of dementia! (Here’s the article: https://bigthink.com/news/ever-get-the-tingles-from-listening-to-good-music-that-part-of-your-brain-will-never-get-lost-to-alzheimers) But the little video in the article is annoying because it just shows that since no one ever just has a radio going in the room, someone has to come in and put headphones on the person and manage the music playing device, so the elders have no agency in their self-retrieval.

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   • reeper4409

     January 4, 2019

     

     Thanks for your comment! I think this is a really interesting sub-topic in cognition that will get more valuable as we learn how the brain really works.

     Reply