What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
I’ve started rewatching The Sound of Music. Not because I’ve suddenly developed a hidden devotion to alpine scenery and singing nuns. It’s just that my mother is deteriorating quickly with dementia, and I visit her every week in the nursing home, and there are apparently only two things ever playing: The Sound of Music and Andre Rieu Live in Australia.
A year ago I would have had no answer to this prompt. I am not a repeat viewer. I don’t return to films for comfort or nostalgia. And yet here I am, months into an accidental viewing marathon, walking into that lounge each week to find Julie Andrews twirling across a hillside or André Rieu beaming at us as if we are all delighted to see him again.
The Sound of Music I can understand. It is gentle, familiar, and full of songs people might still remember. In a place where no one can recall what was on yesterday, that is not a flaw. It is a kind of mercy. Every screening feels new.
Andre Rieu, however, is another matter. His concerts are my personal version of Groundhog Day: the same swelling strings, the same polished exuberance, the same grin. I love music, I love classical music, but I have discovered that there is a limit, and it apparently wears a tuxedo and flourishes a violin.
And yet there they both are, week after week, in the room where my mother sits in the long unravelling of herself, and where I sit with her, trying to be present. The things we watch more than five times are not always our favourites. Sometimes they are simply the stories and performances that accompany us through difficult seasons, becoming stitched into memory through repetition, duty, love, and circumstance.
The Afterword 
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