Remembering My Mother: Grieving Through Filmic Memories
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
On March 11, 2023, my mother passed away. She endured a fifteen month long battle with brain cancer.
Of the many different things we did together (listening to music, going to concerts, our many, many, many conversations, and much more), two of the things I already miss the most are our film and television escapades. Like any family, I looked forward to TV time every evening: it was a fixture of any 90s household during dinner. My family had our shows, including the classic years of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, 24, and Survivor. These were nightly events we all partook in. My father had his recliner (as an adult now myself, I totally understand and refuse to settle for anything less now), and my mom sat on the couch with us kids; we had a second couch, but my two sisters and I would usually try to have the luxury of sitting next to mom.
Well before these memories, my only film based one from my youngest years is the foggiest recollection of seeing Disney’s Aladdin in theatres; after that came The Lion King, which I remember maybe slightly more. It’s incredibly unfortunate that I seem to have lost my grasp on many events that occurred before I was the age of six or seven. There’s also the solace that part of my difficulty of pinpointing all of the films my mom and I saw (or all of us family members saw) together is due to the fact that we just watched so much. I’ve seen an absurd amount of films over the years, and my fixation on the cinematic medium comes from my parents. My father is why I became a collector. He would buy any new release that came out (especially when the DVD craze began in the late 90s). Our place felt like the Blockbuster of the block: close friends would “rent” films quite frequently. I admired the amount of films he had and vowed to start my own collection; him giving me the bulk of his film collection later in life is something I’ll never forget.
While my dad watches many things, I got my versatility from my mother. She never minded rewatching films she has already seen (if they are good enough). When I wanted to put on some classics, she was always game. I was strictly a horror fan as a teenager, but quite a few factors contributed to my branching out. One of those was my mom. My dad always rented us new releases, and we were so privileged to be the kids on the block that were caught up with the must-sees (being one of the first people I knew to see Gladiator when it hit the home release market felt like winning the lottery). My mom would traverse through the other sections of Rogers Video (Canada’s former answer to Blockbuster way back in the day) with us kids during summer vacation, and we would just try anything and everything. It’s where I learned that looking back was as important as being contemporary.
The two mindsets would converge come winter break. My mom’s adoration of legacy would erupt in the form of the Academy Awards (and other awards shows for other mediums). You can see where my dad’s pursuit of new releases comes into play here. When we were out of school for a couple of weeks, we would catch up on all the awards season juggernauts (in theatres, too), and getting to follow these films into the awards season always felt like a treat. A film my mom loved that I do recall in such an instance is Cold Mountain, which we watched in Miami (Dolphin Mall) on New Years Day; we had the theatre to ourselves for nearly three hours. Here was this romantic epic taking place in the Civil War on the big screen that contained one of my mom’s favourite stars (Nicole Kidman). I didn’t quite get it, but I felt like I should because my parents did. A couple of years before, my parents watched A Beautiful Mind in theatres while my sisters and I caught Jimmy Neutron in the cinema next door to theirs. We wanted to be a part of that club where we saw the important films with them, especially after this film went on to win Best Picture. Cold Mountain was one of the first such chances. It was a treat. I didn’t quite get how, but it was.
Before I forget, my film loving parents insisted that we saw Titanic in theatres. Everyone else was catching it. They knew we were maybe a teensy bit young, but they knew how to approach a film of this nature (with tragedy, nudity, and maybe a couple of bad words or two; the steamy car scene meant nothing to young me, thankfully). After guidance, I didn’t see taboo material: I saw a film that blew my mind as a child. Of course, Titanic was the event of the year, but my parents made it something that we experienced together. I think that taste of cinematic spectacles and serious, live action dramas was something none of us kids forgot.
Once Cold Mountain happened, that was it. We were no longer just getting tastes for these sorts of pictures. We were fully in the club. We looked forward to every winter and the films we would go see together. We did see a lot of films for us kids, or family pictures that we could all enjoy. As we got older, we got into more and more of those awards season works; 2007 was a particularly incredible winter where we had Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, and The Kite Runner. We couldn’t get around to more in the short timeframe we had, but once No Country for Old Men, There Will be Blood, and other works were on home video, you’d better believe that we got to them straight away. Getting into these marathons was an annual highlight for me. It’s when I started to get really into the Oscars. I saw how excited my mom got over them. I wanted to take part.
It’s worth noting that we also tossed in comedies quite frequently. My dad is into sillier stuff, and my mom adored romantic comedies. As much as I have a personal connection through the awards season films, I must remember my parents’ fun side. At an older age, my mom would tell me that she couldn’t do too many heavy films in a row, and that the movies were a form of escape for her. She loved to have fun. She also adored films with destination locations, where she could travel to other countries in the span of a couple of hours; the film could be absolute drivel, but my mom found the worth in soaking up the tropical sunlight in a beach scene, or sight seeing a small, European town. I dove so deeply in the whole analysis side of watching films. I began to find faults in the Oscars, in major works, and even in films I used to adore. I was gunning down the path of film criticism at the dawn of my adulthood (at the ripe age of 18), but I kind of lost my parents’ ability to just enjoy what they were watching simply for the fact that films got them away from everything else that was bothering them. They don’t feel the need to dissect each and every film they see.
Shortly after this passion of mine arose, I started attending my film program; I would eventually graduate with a degree in Cinema Studies. I was looking back more than ever because of my film history courses, but I was more than happy to do my own research as well. I just wanted to keep discovering more and more films. I took great pleasure in bringing home films for my mom and me to watch. I put her through so many classics she most certainly had seen already, but she was more than willing to watch them again with me. She even had to deal with my constant commentary throughout these films, where I would go on and on about what I have learned about shots, writing, editing, and acting in university. She would only ever call me a fount of knowledge. Not once did she make me feel badly for committing one of the biggest cinema sins: not shutting up during a film.
Once I graduated, we were all adults that had their own busy lives. We would still all go to the theatre on occasion, but it was also easier to watch films as a family at home. This is when I started to go see films with just my mom, and she would see anything with me. Not every film was a success, but that no longer mattered. I feel like when her and I watched films, she would open up a little more critically as well; we often saw eye-to-eye, but she was always more than happy to hear me out when we didn’t. We never fought over a film. Her patience and willingness taught me quite a bit when I felt like this hotshot that was fresh out of film school: there’s a difference between being a cinephile and being an entitled film nut. I wanted to always follow her lead and just love films without feeling like a know-it-all.
Around the time we started seeing films together, I started figuring out how to get into screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival (the years before were a bit of a mess for me; if you’ve ever gone to TIFF, you’ll know how quickly tickets sold out back in the day). Shortly after my first year of success, I started taking my mom to TIFF at least once a year. My mom loved celebrity culture as much as she loved film, and she always dreamed of visiting red carpets and seeing her favourite stars. We would wake up insanely early, subway down to festival walk (when King street would be closed for a few days) and partake in as many sponsored TIFF activities as possible; my mom would always do whatever L’Oreal was putting on each season; we would try out many of the free food and drink samples being handed out by food trucks; we did so much sight seeing.
My mom’s dreams would come true when she would start seeing the celebrities and filmmakers, whether they were doing red carpets that were open for the public to see or taking part in Q&A sessions (she always put her hand up for me to be picked by the moderator, because she wanted me to ask a question; perhaps it’s all of those countless hours of my film school jargon that made her curious as to what I would ask; it’s likely she just wanted to keep supporting me like she always did). To take part in red carpet events, we’d have to line up for hours, face the weather (it rained quite often, which was just bad luck), deal with manic, pushy crowds, and wait until these famous faces came out. My mom was a trooper that had no problem doing this, and she would light up so much those final moments that her favourite celebrities would appear. It was all worth it, seeing my mom so happy.
We saw many big names, but the one that always stood out felt like a full circle moment: my mom being ten feet away from the very same Nicole Kidman that her and I watched on the big screen fifteen years before. That one meant a lot to her as well. She loved Nicole Kidman so much. We sought out so many films just because she was in them. She got to see her up close. Kidman — who was promoting Lion at the time — was standing out in the rain and greeting people because she knew it was important to them. My mom got to see one of her favourites be full of grace and kindness.
We kept doing our TIFF runs; occasionally, my mom would have to go to TIFF on her own once I started working there (it becomes extremely difficult to work at TIFF and see films some years); she would go with other family members. The last two TIFFs were quite special. In 2018, we saw the Canadian premiere of Roma, which is one of my all time favourite films (and my absolute favourite of the entire 2010s); both my mom and I are criers, so there was comfort in the two of us being there for each other when we were brought to tears. The year before was something else though: one of the early screenings of Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water. Del Toro was there, and she was so thrilled to hear him go on and on about his film, the art of filmmaking, and more. The film was being shown in the Elgin Theatre in downtown Toronto: parts of the film were actually shot there as well, and these scenes were surreal to see within the very same venue. The film wound up winning Best Picture, and my mom took so much pride in knowing that she got to see this winner so early with me.
Even if we didn’t catch them at TIFF, this began a chain reaction. Roma was so close to being the second Best Picture winner in a row that her and I saw, but that year we went through every nominee anyway. It became a tradition: to watch all of the Best Picture nominations together. Sometimes, we would have to finish this feat after the ceremony took place, but 2019 was the first year she caught every nominee beforehand; I felt like such a bad — yet proud — influence when she ranked every nominee from best to worst. We got to discussing all of the films. She felt more connected with the Oscars than ever before. We really were bonding over this year after year.
Even though we were a TV viewing household, I kind of started my own habits as a teenager and lost that connection with my parents; they would watch their shows, and I did my own thing. Once my mom and I were having so many conversations about these films we were watching together, we finally really connected over television again. Fast forward to recent years, where she watched Breaking Bad finally for the first time and kept calling me to discuss almost every episode. She had to begin Better Call Saul right away. I feel badly, but I insisted that she start Succession as well, but she most definitely did not mind this (she was team Greg-the-Egg, by the way). We were really hitting the ground running on our television talks, especially because she was now getting far more excited than I was even just talking about these things. I loved every second of it.
And then the cancer crept in. She was a survivor of cancer twenty-odd years prior, but it came back. This time, it was fatal.
For fifteen months, I tried to continue our TV and film discussions and sessions, but the illness made her lose more and more energy. She was in and out of hospital frequently. A lot of the stuff we would watch together was now too heavy and she didn’t feel like this negativity or weight in her life. She definitely didn’t need it: she required that escapism again. It was tougher than ever for her to keep up with television shows. She couldn’t come to TIFF this past year. She was due to see The Fabelmans. We always wanted to catch it in theatres, and it seemed like we were on track to doing so. We had seen a few films in theatres this past winter, and my mom was going quite a bit with other family members just to get out.
She finally got around to The Fabelmans in the hospital, and she was asking what else she should watch next. This wasn’t like the other times she asked for my recommendations. She wanted a whole list. It felt like she knew there wasn’t much time left and wanted to pull off as much as possible.
She passed away March 11th.
She never got to finish Better Call Saul.
She was caught up with Succession, but the final season isn’t out yet, so she never finished that either.
She was one day away from seeing the 95th Academy Awards. To the best of my knowledge, she only saw one Best Picture nominee: The Fabelmans.
I’m so sorry that cancer took away everything from you, mom, including your love of film and television in your final days. I will always think of you being by my side wondering how I feel about what we are watching; I will picture what you would say in return. You were never negative. You even found positive things to say about the worst films we’d see. I will finish Succession for us both. You will be a part of every film experience I have. I will forever feel your presence by my side. Especially when I walk past red carpets at TIFF: I will imagine each and every flashing camera is your exuberance and excitement reincarnated. You taught me so much, and we shared so much together. I will never take these moments for granted.
Our last film together: A Man Called Otto
Our last show together: Seinfeld/The Big Bang Theory (they were on TV during one of her last days; she always wanted to watch more Seinfeld with me since it’s one of my favourite shows, and I wish that we did. I’m so sorry, mom)
Thank you for all of the memories, mom. Thank you for allowing me to geek out about what I love without ever judging me or telling me to stop. Thank you for opening my eyes and teaching me (about film, and about having a warmer approach to being a film lover). Thank you for putting up with the crazier films we watched together. Thank you for never making me feel bad about what I like, and for being up to watching anything. Thank you for sharing your favourite films with me, including The Sound of Music, Gone With the Wind, and many, many others.
You dressed up as Hedy Lamarr for a costume party when you were a kid. Even if you didn’t, you were always my favourite film star whenever and wherever we went.
You still are.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.