Educational Media Reviews Online

Famous 4A is a video snapshot—a “day in the life” perspective of a VA hospice center in Palo Alto, California. The patients here are all in their final days, and understand that the most important thing is that they are comfortable, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. In a mere 20 minutes, director and producer Mike Attie has succeeded at invoking the realities of life inside a hospice institution. The brilliance of the film is allowing the five profiled patients to tell the story. No script or narrative could do it as well. The realism that Attie lets play out on film can be difficult to watch, yet it is infused with an overall acceptance that the end of life is simply another stage we go through. Dying is part of living. As one patient in the film remarks, “I’ve learned a lot about life from people dying.” And that is what Famous 4A is really about.

As each of the men tell particular parts of their stories, the picture of what hospice is overall, what it is in an institutional setting, and how this part of life can be handled with dignity, respect, and love becomes crystal clear by the close of the film. Attie has skillfully created a thoughtful, moving, and educational documentary. Famous 4A will be welcome in academic libraries supporting health sciences and social work curricula.

“Mingle and let the cameras roll because this is as close as you can get to death.” –Angel Nunez, patient, Palo Alto Hospice Care Center