A Joyful Testament to Middle Age

When did Elinor Carucci enter my apartment and take photos of my life? This was exactly how I felt looking at her new book, Midlife, a gorgeous documentary account of domesticity, 20 years in. There is the messy kitchen counter, unpicturesque. There is the couple (at the same counter) paying bills and unpacking groceries, each frame a frozen section of time, implying decades of repetition of household chores. The teenage daughter gazes at the camera with a look of rebelliousness, while her twin brother seems more delicate. The husband is sheepish, aware that he’s been consigned to the dim border areas of parenthood. One picture, of the couple posed in the semi-dark, is titled You Know More of the Parenting Falls to Me. The wife, standing in the refrigerator light, accuses her husband; he is shadowed, shirtless, and looking away.

25 November 2019