Old can be interpreted as a parable of the inevitable trajectory of human life on this earth. The film obviously plays on humanity’s nearly universal fear of aging and dying.
Inga opens and ends with two major entries (Kapitels or “chapters”) she writes in her journal. The first and briefer is “Love.” In her poetic vocal narrative, she offers her views of love’s evolving meanings and changing phases across the life span.
I am in awe of this film.
Every so often a film comes along that is highly entertaining to watch and is also a wonderful vehicle for exploring and presenting several elderhood and aging-related issues.
Mark Wexler’s odyssey in How to Live Forever is an energetic, sometimes serious, sometimes amusing, but always interesting popular culture panorama about humankind’s efforts to extend both active and maximum longevity.
Will Power is a film about a saddening and dissolving family occurrence. Videographer and narrator Tom Garber shares with us his involvement in a contentious legal battle between himself and his siblings over opposing inheritance claims made on the family homeplace following the death of their parents.
Rarely have I seen a film that looks at our human mortality as creatively and playfully as this one does. Before you turn away from reading any further about a subject so off-putting as death, let me say: See this film! It is not what you think it will be. I was avoiding even considering this film to review or see; the brief descriptions of it made it sound too grotesque.
At the outset of Elder Voices, we are immediately embroiled in a series of modern social tragedies that have become all too familiar in the United States in the last couple of decades. We hear tearful voices on the emergency calls made by victims and observers of mass shootings.
Last Flag Flying takes place in 2003—the year that Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein was captured and sentenced to hang. The film opens with Vietnam War veteran Larry “Doc” Shepherd (Steve Carell) walking into a nearly empty bar on a rainy night. He orders a beer from the brash-sounding bartender and after some brief conversation with him, says, “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project triggers viewers to reflect on the meaning of preserving the broader cultural memory of an entire society for 33 years through the video recordings of 24-hr news programs.
My Claire is a very brief feature (cinematic) film about Henry, an elderly man trying to cope with the recent death of his beloved spouse, Claire. At its onset, we are immediately made aware that this film deals with death, grief, and mourning. Henry is having a tough time of it
This film opens on an interview with 82 year-old George (“Jack”) William Hall. Twenty-one years ago, his son—hooked on drugs as a teenager—“finally hanged himself.” Jack explains: “One day this dope dealer was bragging about how he made his money. He didn’t make no more. I stopped him.”
The premise of this interesting and multilayered film is revealed at the outset: Videographer Linda Brown created You See Me (http://youseememovie.com/) in hopes of achieving a better understanding of her father, Stanley Brown, a man she loved but “wonder if I ever really knew.”
At one point in this remarkable film, 89-year-old Dr. Peter Reimann, accompanied on piano by daughter Hannah Reimann, sings this brief German art song from Schubert’s Die Winterreise No. 15. The Raven (Die Krähe).
The defining theme of Dying Wish is offered at its outset by 80-year-old retired surgeon Dr. Michael Miller, who suffers from late-stage terminal cancer: “I’m Michael Miller. Soon I will discontinue drinking and eating and drift into death in days.
When a lie becomes part of carefully orchestrated communication in the service of the perceived good of the lie's recipient, is it justified? The Farewell presents this question within a scenario that is also complicated by the differing societal assumptions expressed in Eastern and Western cultures.