press
{the consensus of the general critical commentary}
out of illness
comes acclaim for father and son
11
may 2006 | perry tannenbaum, backstage.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- In a key moment
in Donor, Jeff Moonie Sr. shows us a rash that has broken out on his skin
and mouth following a stem cell transplant. Three protocols of
chemotherapy have failed to reduce the high levels of protein in his
bloodstream or dislodge the myeloma -- a malignant tumor formed by bone
marrow cells -- in his bones, necessitating the transplant from his
younger sister, Tamara. The skin rash is an early symptom of
graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), which is the result of the transplanted
cells attacking the host body.
"Doctors like to see a little bit of it," Moonie Sr. tells his son, Jeff
Moonie Jr., who is filming the demonstration. "It's a good thing. Kinda."
What we've just seen, a title explains, is Stage 1 of GVHD.
Now the film cuts to Stage 4: The black pigment around the father's eyes
has disappeared, leaving hideous mustard-yellow circles. His ears are
almost entirely the same sickly hue. Even where the original pigmentation
remains, the skin is growing darker, soon to be as crusty as old leather.
Standing behind the camera, Moonie Jr. doesn't realize he is shooting a
documentary -- let alone one that will win the best documentary award at
the 2005 Asheville Film Festival. No, the producer-director of Donor
thought he was shooting a home movie.
"Because as bad as it looks," the son explains, "we wholeheartedly thought
he was going to get better. So there was never any panic."
Even when he first considered the idea of doing a documentary about his
father's illness, Moonie Jr.'s idea wasn't to show the impact of cancer on
a caregiving family -- or, as Moonie Sr. says early in the film, to teach
the importance of cherishing every precious moment in life. The first
impulse was more practical and urgent.
"My dad suggested that if we show what he has to go through," the son
recalls, "maybe minorities would be more inclined to donate for the people
waiting in the registry" for a bone marrow transplant. "That was why he
was willing to have the camera around him." And since the two were
partners in the North Carolina-based DarkPro Films, it was natural for the
father to expect his son to act upon the idea. But Moonie Jr. didn't
consult his father when he decided to change the Donor game plan.
He still bought into the idea that his father's story could serve as a
powerful incentive for African Americans to have their DNA tested for
lifesaving stem cell transplants. But watching his father through the
viewfinder, Moonie Jr. began to imagine Donor as sailing into deeper
thematic waters.
"When I started noticing his personality change, that started to interest
me in a different way," he recalls. "So that's when I made a conscious
decision to start paying attention to everything -- including my mother
and my sisters. That's when the documentary was born. He didn't realize I
had made that decision. He thought that I was still getting footage that I
might put together to encourage minority donors later."
There was also no guarantee that his father would agree to the release of
Donor when he saw the final cut, which would include his family's reaction
to the tribulations his illness had put them through. Meanwhile, as the
scope of his documentary widened, Moonie Jr. found that unforeseen twists
were multiplying.
For example, his younger sister, Janalyn, insisted on turning the tables
and interviewing him on camera. A reluctant actor, Moonie Jr. nonetheless
felt it would be unfair to leave footage of himself on the cutting-room
floor while exposing his mother's and sisters' experience with Moonie
Sr.'s illness. So he edited himself into the film, however unflattering
the footage was.
Donor also explores the chasm between his weakened father, fighting GVHD,
and the man he once was. On camera, Moonie Jr.'s mother, Wanda, thumbs
through a family photo album, flashing us back to the days when a younger,
more militant Moonie Sr. sported the largest Afro in Gaston County. Later
we see his dignity in the glare of Court TV cameras after his pregnant
daughter, Cherica Adams, was slain by Rae Carruth, a Carolina Panthers
wide receiver.
Donor also brought a woman named Susan Pennington into the filmmakers'
orbit. A former co-worker hired by Moonie Sr., she and he became close
friends after his myeloma was diagnosed in July 2002. At the time, she was
waging a desperate war against breast cancer: six rounds of chemotherapy,
33 radiation treatments, a double mastectomy, reconstructive surgery,
multiple relapses. We see how Pennington inspired Moonie Sr. by her
example, firming up his morale when it flagged.
And there is the sunny flavor of Pennington's optimism when Moonie Jr.
interviews her on camera and when he accompanies her to the hospital to
get her scan results after being the first breast cancer patient to
receive a promising experimental drug in a clinical trial. Her fortuitous
lab results turn out to be a cruel deception, however: While the cancer in
her chest was stabilizing, inoperable tumors erupted in her brain, giving
her just months to live.
This leads to one of the film's most powerful moments. Since Pennington
and her husband, Chip, had never visited the Moonies at home, the family
invited the couple over for a bittersweet dinner party after Thanksgiving.
Unexpectedly, and knowing how painful it would be, Pennington asked Moonie
Sr. to let her talk to the camera directly in order to properly finish her
story. In the film's most heart-wrenching minutes, distilled from hours of
conversation, we witness a touching role-reversal: Sliding alongside her
on the couch, Moonie Sr. becomes Pennington's dearest, most empathic
comforter.
"Midway through the conversation," Moonie Jr. remembers, "he went over
there because she was really getting distraught. So it wasn't planned that
they were going to sit together. She just wanted to say some last things,
and then just over the course of it she got really upset, and he consoled
her. Then they both just started talking to me at the same time." Captured
on film, their dialogue transcends race, marriage, and mortality. Their
bond is cemented before our eyes.
"Yes, they were very, very close in a way that I don't think any of us can
understand," Moonie Jr. observes. "Towards the end, we could see that they
had something that we really needed to stay out of the way of."
The end for Pennington came about three months later. For Moonie Sr., it
was more sudden: During the film, he celebrates renewed physical contact
with his grandchildren at Thanksgiving, and then, after Susan's death,
there's a birthday party at which he reaches the crucial one-year
milestone for stem cell transplants. He was myeloma-free when his
confidence in Donor was vindicated at the Asheville Film Festival, but he
died on the festival's last day, succumbing not to myeloma but to the
effects of GVHD.
Understandably, Moonie Jr. says he'll never make another documentary. But
he has come to appreciate the special healing value that Donor holds for
families that have experienced the difficulty of caring for sick loved
ones. While each public screening still makes him uncomfortable, he showed
the film at Charlotte's Light Factory in February and again at the city's
Afro-American Cultural Center on April 9. And he's still entering the work
in film festivals around the country.
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