A photo of Marianne Hertz, the woman in the documentary.
My girlfriend and I watch a documentary called: A family affair.
Recommended. Really look at the moment you are 'in' for it.

Below: a summary of the documentary with an invitation to reflect while viewing the documentary; a piece of dialogue from the documentary with some reflection from my side and the link to the documentary.

Resume:
A family affair is a family story by filmmaker Tom Fassaert, who on his thirtieth birthday receives an invitation from his 95-year-old grandmother (Marianne Hertz) to visit her in South Africa, Tom himself lives in the Netherlands.
Marianne broke up with her sons a long time ago, then left for South Africa, no longer fulfilling the mother role. Before her death she wants to return to the Netherlands one more time to say goodbye to her family. 

Grandson Tom addresses her invitation. 
He has never met his Grandmother and only knows her from the predominantly negative stories told by his father. 

Marianne Hertz, Tom's grandmother, became a well-known model in South Africa in the 1950s and she opened also some fashion stores.
The two sons, the father of Tom, who later became a psychologist and his uncle, who was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for some time after his mother's departure, have suffered from their mother's departure their whole life. Tom Fassaert (grandson) decides to accept the invitation of his grandmother and takes his camera with him.

An invitation to reflection while viewing the documentary:  
While you look at the documentary, register what goes on in you: what do you notice? what do you see? with what eyes do you look? which judgments come along? which interpretations cross your mind? 

Do you look through glasses of opinions and beliefs (ego) or do you take reality as it is? Can you watch without the critical voice, which finds something of everything? Do you rate the choices that are made? Do you think it's right or wrong? Is there something between you and that which is shown in the documentary? Between you and the reality of this family history?

Or are you looking at reality as it is shown in the documentary? 
Are you receptive, open and in resonance with what is happening in this family? Are you looking from the heart: open, without judgment, full of compassion for everyone's experience and for the choices that have been made?

And what if you find yourself looking from judgments and opinions? 
What if you look from the mind, the critical voice? 
What if you see that your glasses are pretty fogged and you notice that a lot of opinions are passing by, so you can't see, feel, and hear in an open way, because your "truth" is in between? 
What if you want to look from the heart without judgment, but you notice that this isn't the case? 

All you have to do is: Awareness. 
See what is triggered in you, what is touched in you, take a step back (Awareness), see the judgments and opinions, that is all. And don't value what you see, don't identify with all the stories and analyzes that the mind tells you. 
Don't believe what the mind suggests,because everything what you belief comes from conditioning and social coding (you should not leave your children behind). 

And don't think: I may not have judgments, because then you are again a prisoner of the critic, the mind.

The judgments don't have to go away, they don't have to be worked out or solved..., then you are busy for a lifetime..., with the mind..., which always comes up with something else that needs attention..., the next issue to be resolved (ps: there is nothing wrong with the mind when it relates to practical matters or intelligence that is necessary for scientific purposes, building bridges etc.).
Focus your attention on Awareness: who or what in us sees these judgments? Focus your attention on 'That'. Not on the judgments themselves, but on 'That' what the judgments perceive. 
THAT is neutral, THAT is compassion, THAT means: looking from the heart, from consciousness.

A fragment from a dialogue between grandmother and grandson with some reflection:
A 95-year-old woman named Marianne, who was given the role of grandmother, says to her grandson Tom:
'How do you actually see me? Somewhere we have the same wavelength although the age is very different. You are 30 and I am three times as old, but that age doesn't really play a big role. That is the strange thing. I love you..., too much. I can't, it is wrong, but it is a fact. You see, I am going to open myself completely to you and that doesn't happen much. I can't do it, but I can do it for you. 
Strange, I never had expected to be so in love with you. It is retarded. What do you think of that?
Tom, the grandson, indicates that he doesn't know what to say, that he sees her as a grandmother and wants to film the family history.
To which Marianne says: 'Listen, Tom, I don't believe that you only see me as a grandmother..., I don't believe it. Somewhere you might think: was she only 25 or 26 years old... Then it was a passionate love affair, fantastic..., fantastic..., fantastic...
Tom: it doesn't matter to you that I only see you as a grandmother...
No, says Marianne, there is more, there is more... 
Tom continues to indicate that he considers Marianne to be his grandmother even though he doesn't know what a grandmother is, because she has been out of the picture for much of his life. To which Marianne says: 'Ah you with your grandmother, keep your mouth about Grandma.' Tom: 'Why don't you want to be my grandmother?'
Marianne: 'I think that's too official, too unromantic, too real, too real.'

Reflection: When I watch this documentary, this woman, I melt. I just melt when I listen to hear and feel her energy - in contrast to several reviews written about the documentary and about her.

What I see, hear and feel is: Love. 
Love for Marianne who doesn't want to be a 'grandmother', who doesn't want to play a roll, she wants to be a human being in relation to another human being. 

I feel love for a woman who appears with curlers on the camera. 
Love for a woman who, without any gene, comprehensively prepares herself for the camara, while she indicates that appearance is not important. 
Love for a woman who is doing gymnastic exercises every day at the age of 95. Love for the woman who clearly indicates her limits (I don't want to talk about that, that is another topic). 
Love for the woman who gradually opens her heart to Tom (grandson). 

Finally there is someone within the family/in her life, who is really interested in her, in her story, her history, her motives. 
It is her grandson, whom she doesn't want to see as a grandson, but as a human being, who listens to her and sees her. Even though there is now and then friction between them: they meet from heart to heart, beyond all words. 

Marianne translates this as 'being in love', as 'somewhere we have the same wavelength', as 'there is more between us, there is more', but what actually happens is that her heart opens, gradually she opens up and shows her love to Tom. 

At the end of the documentary, in the last phase of her life, when she is in the hospital, Tom moves to the bed, he holds her hand and says: 'Marianne (not 'grandmother', he approaches her as a human being), I am there, I am there. She smiles blissfully and gives him some strokes over his hand. Tom asks how she is doing. And she says: With me? Fantastic... And again a blissful smile appears on her face. Not much later she dies.

Well, that is pure love... That is what I see, feel and hear. 
What do you see, feel and hear?

Below is a paragraph from a review written by a newspaper in Holland  (Volkskrant): with what eyes is this written?
'With that disconcerting outpouring, captured by the camera, Fassaert comes closest to the core of Marianne's personality. She is an unstoppable flirt, a narcissist who never seems to have feelings of motherhood and doesn't want to be a grandmother. 
When she later tells about her own difficult childhood, it is hard to believe her; who knows, she increases her story to make an impression, just as her entire performance is aimed at winning over others.'

Finally, a quote from Marianne and a quotation from Tom:
Marianne: 'When is something true? Truth is personal. There is no real truth. Truth: forget it..., you never find it!'
Quote from Tom: 'I was fascinated by the fact that my father tried to build up a relationship with her every time. How seventy-year-olds, like my father and brother, How seventy-year-olds, like my father and brother, the desire for a mother, that originated in childhood, continues to play a role in their whole life.
 
Yes, truth doesn't exist..., not on the relative level. 
Everyone has his/her own view and experience and holds on to memories, to a story from the past that prevents us from meeting the other person in openness, because all our projections (all the judgments that we "stick" to the other) are in between. 

That's how it goes..., as long as you're not awake, everyone lives in her/his virtual reality, conceived by the head, which leads to conflicts and suffering when you think your view, your story is the right one: what I see is true, what the other sees is not true, I am right, you are wrong. 

Yes, Marianne understood this well: truth on the relative level doesn't exist. But what passes beyond everyone's experience, everyone's truth, beyond all colorations, beyond all judgments (positive or negative) and memories? Focus your attention on That, who or what sees that personal truth?

Consciousness..., and when you are at home in awareness, then reality unfolds as it is, then you can hear, feel and see the other as it is, then there is nothing between you and reality, then real love unfolds.

The link to the documentary 'A family Affair':
https://www.npostart.nl/2doc/16-11-2016/KN_1686075

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