A documentary with various scenes from daily life at a private facility for elderly Muslim in Malaysia. Documentation of such a facility is valuable in itself. It mainly depicts the elderly by following the woman who founded/manages the facility. A great many of those arrive here for reasons such as abandonment by their families, loss of their homes, a lack of care and so on, are women. As in many societies in Southeast Asia, here too it is considered extremely tragic to be without family or to be abandoned by family members at an advanced age, and this is acutely felt throughout this film. I was struck by the brief scene of the elderly reading the Qur’an with the most serious and lively expressions on their faces.

The Twilight Years stares directly at old-age dejection and death. No room for subtle images that would make old age look romantic in one’s eye. The subject is what it is — the gnarled fate that all humans are bound to become. Aging is a reality all must face. While the documentary’s subject shows the candid state of growing old, it wraps around its subject with warm and caring sensitivity. For the care which the hospice offers to those who are old and dejected, abandoned even by their own families, the film ably overturns the hurt and abandonment with its overflowing humanity and professional care. As death stares at the old and the sick, compassion is what makes it possible for the aged to live for another day. The documentary makes no judgment over its subjects, even while its camera looks without blinking on images of the abject and the abandoned. The unflattering images do not betray its subjects but, rather, they sear into the consciousness of viewers. They are meant to make its audience realize the condition into which all humans are subject to. Caring for the old is a way to affirm the cycle of life.