Coming to NYC’s IFC Center today, Friday, October 4: WALTER: LESSONS FROM THE WORLD’S OLDEST PEOPLE
Hunter Weeks’ quest for insight from people born over a century ago made its debut at Oregon’s Bend Film Festival last month. In addition to its NYC bow this weekend, the film expands to Los Angeles next week, with special screenings in select other cities planned.
Inspired by meeting Walter Breuning, at that point the world’s oldest man at 114, Weeks set out to spend more time with him and to meet other supercentenarians – individuals who have lived to the age 110 or later – to gain some insight about longevity and how life looks from their rather unique perspectives. Usually accompanying him on his visits, or otherwise processing the experiences, is his fianceé, Sarah. Some of the seniors are active and very communicative, others less so, speaking more through caretaking relatives, but all embody some basic concept – purpose, patience, kindness, family, happiness, and love – that might be seen as a factor in their long-livedness. While the supers share an occasional memory revealing what life was like in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the film isn’t meant as a biography, but instead as more of an inspirational instructive, as signaled by its subtitle. The real subjects are Hunter and Sarah, who appear very often on camera discussing the project together or with friends, at the relative beginning of their lives in contrast to these individuals at the very end of theirs. As a whole, they devote too much of the film to themselves, but it’s based on good intentions. Functioning in the place of their audience, they reflect on the lessons learned from Walter and the others, suggesting how they – and their viewers – might put them in practice as they grow older.
what (not) to doc 