A French actress who "no longer knows who she is"

There's no attractive way to show how Alzheimer's can destroy a person's life and that of other family members. And it's without doubt hard to produce a television documentary that doesn't in a way smack of voyeurism.

But somehow, Sunday night's screening on French national television of Nicolas Baulieu's "Ainsi va la vie" managed to bring home the full force of the illness and remain a tender, loving homage to a star of French cinema.

Annie Girardot may not be a name with which many people outside of France are that familiar - especially if you're not a lover of this country's cinema.

But she was a giant of the big screen here in France during the 1970s, and had a career that spanned five decades and included more than 200 films. She has been described as "one of the most popular screen actresses in modern French cinematographic history."

Since going public in 2006 with the news that she was suffering from Alzheimer's, Girardot has become a symbol of the illness here in France.

Baulieu's documentary followed the actress and her family until filming stopped in February 2007 when he said that Girardot was no longer aware of the presence of the cameras.

And even though it was shown after 11pm, more than 2.7 million households tuned in to watch.

It included interviews with stars and directors with whom the actress had worked, and over the course of the eight months the cameras showed her at home with her daughter and grandchildren and also at public functions. But never once intruding into areas that were too private, There were no appointments with doctors or sessions with medical staff.

"She was perfectly conscious from the outset that we were making a film about her because we had talked about it," said Baulieu in an interview with the national daily Le Parisien.

"Everything was done with her complete consent, that of her family and TF1. I didn't want to be a voyeur. There was no question of filming at the doctor," he added.

It was by its nature a program that made uncomfortable viewing, especially the moment which showed her still working but needing to have the words spoken to her through an earpiece. Girardot, although not really aware of what she was saying, still managed to deliver them in a disturbingly convincing fashion.

Equally distressing was to watch this once fine alert actress - whose professional life had been so dependent on the camera - become completely reliant on those around her to be able to define herself, and at the same time see those moments of fierce pride and fleeting lucidity shine through.

Public appearances when the obviously frail and confused woman battled to remember the names of people she knew well, were interspersed with reminders of her at her prime; clips of some of the films in which she had appeared and words of tribute from many in the French film industry including most notably director Claude Lelouch, with whom she worked on several occasions.

It was Lelouch who brought her back to the public's attention after 15 years out of the limelight when he cast her in his 1996 version of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables - a role for which Girardot won a César for best supporting actress.

Perhaps it's only someone in Baulieu's position that could have made such a documentary. He has known the actress for more than two decades and is a close personal friend.

But of course there have been many questions asked as to whether it was really necessary to show the descent into a private hell of a woman who had been such a public figure for so many years. And there's probably no real answer to that.

The intention was to pay homage to a giant of the French screen who has also become an unwilling symbol of the illness.

It was done with her initial consent and also that of her family and entourage. But still the last image of her sitting on a bench - a moment of complete disorientation and apparently feeling that she had been "abandoned" - not even aware of the presence of the camera or the team who were with her, is a haunting and troubling one.

The 76-year-old actress now lives in a home - and as Baulieu says "Annie Girardot no longer knows who Annie Girardot is."