Film Review: How To Live Forever

Mark Wexler explores modern medicine's attempt to extend life but also learns there's more to living than merely numbers

In his new documentary, How To Live Forever, documentarian Mark Wexler states right up front that the very film the viewer is about to watch occupied three years of his life, while those preparing to ingest it have to invest only ninety minutes. It is an interesting yet pertinent anecdote as How To Live deals with the passage of time and how one can appreciate it. Wexler frames this theme within the context of life extension, by conducting interviews with some of the oldest people alive on record (accompanying a Guinness World Record official whose job is to keep track of exactly that) as well as investigate the wide-eyed myriad of research currently being conducted. Notable researchers such as Ray Kurzweil and Aubrey de Grey offer insights into the merger of man and machine as a means to extend humanity’s collective existence and life span, in tones more reminiscent of high tech prophets rather than merely, interested scientists.

However, it is difficult to not help wondering how interested they are in the practical ramifications of such breakthroughs versus merely achieving them. It is easy to say that one may want to live a thousand years but how would said person really occupy all that time meaningfully? Moreover, would innovation itself perhaps be stifled without the neverending influx of ideas and vigor provided by youth trying to make a mark on society? Meanwhile, late health guru Jack LaLanne provides Wexler with workout and lifestyle tips culled from over fifty years of experience. LaLanne’s vigor is both heartening and frankly exhausting at times, but the man’s positive mental attitude arguably had as much to do with his longevity as his consistent weight training and power walking.

Remembering though that film is ultimately a visual medium, which many documentaries can take for granted, Wexler incorporates clever animations and other small but effective details that provide food for the eyes, while the interviews and subject matter feed the mind. Providing a running ticker displaying each interview subject’s age is a neat, visual cue which provides one with that extra morsel of information through which to judge each individual’s opinions, leading us to naturally defer to the concept that age reveals wisdom over time. It is true that listening to an individual in their thirties discussing the importance of reviving themselves via cryogenics to achieve more in their lifetime can certainly be outweighed by someone in their nineties or older praising the virtues of enjoying what time they’ve already had and not begging for more.

When dissecting the oddly, carnivalesque atmosphere of a funeral director convention in Las Vegas, with its garish products and huckster vibe, one author correctly points out the genuine terror society faces today in dealing with the dead themselves, the actual physical remains embodying one’s not only physical but perhaps spiritual end. Such ideas can only cause rumination on one’s own mortality but given culture’s current narcisscism, any genuine contemplation is to be avoided. Perhaps the worst example of this refusal to engage is the online grief program displayed by one salesman, in which loved ones can begin coping with the death of family or friend via a series of touchscreen display options ranging from heart attack to suicide.

Much of this industry, one can argue, is predicated again on fear of death as well as grief, as though the end must be viewed with revulsion rather than closure. Many of the elderly subjects, including the world’s oldest people, all share the fact though that their lives in general only grow richer as time passes and that it is up to the individual to find pleasure and purpose with what time he or she has left. These people understand that the important part of living is life itself, having experiences, enjoying one’s self and fulfilling purpose, rather than simply being able to watch years pass by. They educate Wexler and the audience that there is a difference between merely existing and actually living.

To learn more, go to www.liveforevermovie.com