Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'How to Live Forever'
This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is:
“How to Live Forever”
From a convention full of funeral directors to a 101-year-old chain-smoking marathon runner, everyone has strong opinions about growing old and facing the prospect of death. And documentarian Mark Wexler surveys a spry array of geriatric experts and the elderly on that universal topic in “How to Live Forever,” due out on DVD Tuesday.
This 2011 documentary tackles some perplexing questions: is death inevitable, is eternal life possible or is it even desirable? In a meandering, often lighthearted fashion, Wexler (son of renowned cinematographer Haskell Wexler and maker of the father-son documentary “Tell Them Who You Are”) wanders around interviewing a colorful array of people with strong opinions and feelings on those subjects.
Some are serious questers after a long and healthy life; some are obvious crackpots intent on some fountain-of-youth fantasy.
The cast of characters includes 101-year-old Buster Martin, who, before he ran the London Marathon, stopped at the pub for “a pint and a fag.” There’s a 94-year-old thoracic surgeon who won’t retire because he still enjoys the adrenaline thrill of operating. There’s waxy-looking actress Suzanne Somers extolling the virtues of hormone therapy, and the late Jack LaLane, then 94, boasting of the benefits of exercise and raw food.
