Braindamadj'd ... Take II

Canada / 2006 / Paul Nadler / 42 & 50 mins

Ten years ago, Montrealer Paul Nadler at 30 was a creative maverick – snowboarding, rock-climbing and scuba diving, taking part in all-night play-writing sessions, attracting women, and winning awards as a hip television director. Then he was found alone on a road in Egypt, without clothes and I.D., comatose in the hot sun after a car accident. He had been left for dead. The doctors said he would never recover from TBI – Traumatic Brain Injury. His mother leapt into action, getting him back to one of Montreal’s leading hospitals, and pressing family and friends into round-the-clock attempts to revive her son from the coma from which doctors said he’d never emerge. From there, it became a series of acts of defiance against the doctors’ and therapists’ prognosis (he’d never see, never talk, walk, socialize or do much).
Braindamadj’d…Take II traces the excruciating process of recovery, both physical and psychological. It features Nadler’s often sardonic comments on his progress, and the observations of key people involved in his recovery. Among them are his doggedly supportive mother, Vera Nadler-Hébert, his ironic but firm-willed father Arie; his sister, cousins, friends, colleagues and medical professionals – neurologists and therapists, one of whom asserts that working with Paul has changed the way she treats patients. As the film shows, Nadler sets goals that seem physically and psychologically impossible. Never shying away from attention, Nadler returns to school for his master’s degree in communications, and his career takes a surprise twist.