DVD Review: How to Live Forever (2009)

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05, June 2012Home Video, Reviews

Cast: Suzanne Somers , Phyllis Diller , Ray Bradbury
Director: Mark Wexler
Country: USA
Genre: Documentary
Official Trailer: Here

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Editor’s Notes: How to Live Forever released 6/5/2012 on DVD from Newvideo.

The question isn’t so much how to live forever, the question is why anyone would want to live forever. This is the profound existential parable explored in Mark Wexler’s How to Live Forever as he journeys through the bigger questions of life with humor, heart, and a dizzying barrage of scientific tidbits. Mark is unsated by the answers from any one authority and approaches his documentary as an existential journeyman, open to all ideas and avenues for the unanswerable questions that have plagued humanity from its first moments of cognition. Western cultures hide from their own grief as the passing of loved ones offers an unwanted reminder to the citizens of our contemporary culture of narcissism that there is too much work to be done to accept the inevitable. Eastern cultures seemingly relinquish themselves to the inevitability of death’s call as they carry out their daily lives unhindered by the burden of ineffectual ambition. If there is one constant to be found in the key to longevity in any culture, it is in retaining a sense of purpose so that you may continually exercise both body and mind (good genetics and proper diet also don’t hurt).

Wexler explores a dizzying myriad of scientific ideas and spiritual philosophies in the film’s 92 minute runtime, and each carefully selected piece fills in another gap in the collective human experience and quietly reminds us of the reasons that life is worth living in the first place. One enters the documentary with the idea that the concentration will be on the tenacity of the human spirit and centenarians that do remarkable things despite their age, but what we get is a beautiful decentralized examination of what it is to be cognizant and mortal, but ultimately innocent in our own ignorance of what happens when that light goes out. The destabilization of cellular regeneration is ultimately going to claim us all, but it turns out there are ways that you can keep the “orchestra in tune”. One of the great mysteries of life is how our sense of purpose is tied to the microscopic regeneration mechanisms of cellular biology, but somehow there seems to be a correlation between the will to live and longevity. There is a divine and mysterious connection between our cognitive reasoning and the automated mechanics that keep our “machine” running, and finding the connection between the two seemingly disparate facets of the organic human machine could have a tremendous impact on not only longevity and standard of living at older ages, but also in the way that every culture views life.

One enters the documentary with the idea that the concentration will be on the tenacity of the human spirit and centenarians that do remarkable things despite their age, but what we get is a beautiful decentralized examination of what it is to be cognizant and mortal, but ultimately innocent in our own ignorance of what happens when that light goes out.

The diversity of the viewpoints and avenues explored give the film its strength as it approaches the unanswerable questions with the appropriate levels of earnestness, but the effect can be quite dizzying as you are whisked from scientific experts, laymen, and to the reactionary guardians of old fashioned American objectivity, all offering their opinions on the universal questions and all acting as integral pieces in illustrating the broad spectrum of the combined human experience. From Yogis that preach the power of laughter for its own sake, Suzanne Somers’ hormonal orchestra, Ray Bradbury’s zeal in his pursuit of truths, the 92 year old fisherman from Okinawa who has skin-dived for a living nearly every day of his life, to Jack LaLanne’s myopic cheerleading (juice and exercise are no substitute for genetics and good brain chemistry); everyone has their own opinion on the key to greasing the wheels of our biological machine. Some pursue the answers through biology, skimming the surfaces of our inner mechanics to reveal the possibility of an “Ageless society” that would seem like the stuff of science fiction without a rudimentary understanding of the processes of cellular death. We are only beginning to scratch the surface of our potential, but if we do eventually unlock the key to our own biological functions then we have a whole new set of problems to tackle with the existential implications and practical problems of overpopulation as we currently have a limited amount of space and resources.

From Yogis that preach the power of laughter for its own sake, Suzanne Somers’ hormonal orchestra, Ray Bradbury’s zeal in his pursuit of truths, the 92 year old fisherman from Okinawa who has skin-dived for a living nearly every day of his life, to Jack LaLanne’s myopic cheerleading (juice and exercise are no substitute for genetics and good brain chemistry); everyone has their own opinion on the key to greasing the wheels of our biological machine.

How to Live Forever is fascinating in the contradictory elements that it is able to tie together in such a short runtime. Despite the cultural tendency of fear that a Western audience would have in confronting the certainty of their own mortality, the documentary manages to breeze through it all with a sense of irreverent fun (look for a cutaway reaction shot of the director after an unintentional bit of innuendo during Suzanne Somers’ interview) and a sense of earnest curiosity with mankind’s various obsessions caused by our irrational fear of the inevitable. There are also inspirational tales of remarkable centenarians that remind us of the preciousness of life, but they are neither the sole focus of the film nor the most profound source of inspirational material. What is truly remarkable about the film is the sense of joy that it inspires despite its confrontation of truths that are uncomfortable in our society. We need not let our own mortality define our actions as we explore the simple joys of the here and now. Find whatever it is that inspires you and causes your synapses to fire, whether it be religion, art, film, writing, love, whatever you can find to make your short time worthwhile, and pour yourself in to it. You never know, it could be what gives you a decent quality of life in your twilight years. If you don’t have that “thing” that gets you out of bed every morning, then maybe you should start looking for it now.

81/100 ~ GREAT. How to Live Forever is fascinating in the contradictory elements that it is able to tie together in such a short runtime. Despite the cultural tendency of fear that a Western audience would have in confronting the certainty of their own mortality, the documentary manages to breeze through it all with a sense of irreverent fun (look for a cutaway reaction shot of the director after an unintentional bit of innuendo during Suzanne Somers’ interview) and a sense of earnest curiosity with mankind’s various obsessions caused by our irrational fear of the inevitable. There are also inspirational tales of remarkable centenarians that remind us of the preciousness of life, but they are neither the sole focus of the film nor the most profound source of inspirational material. What is truly remarkable about the film is the sense of joy that it inspires despite its confrontation of truths that are uncomfortable in our society.

Matthew Blevins
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Senior Editor & Film Critic. Behind me you see the empty bookshelves that my obsession with film has caused. Film teaches me most of the important concepts of life, such as cynicism, beauty, ugliness, subversion of societal norms, and what it is to be a tortured member of humanity. My passion for the medium is an important part of who I am as I stumble through existence in a desperate and frantic search for objective truths.