Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality

To paraphrase Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense: I see dead people…and living people talking endlessly about dead people. Inspired by Ernest Becker's 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning book Denial of Death, this documentary explores how people view life's passage to the great beyond. Patrick Shen's film could have gone in several intriguing directions—an overview of how different cultures handle the subject of death, or a historic study of changing perceptions regarding death, or even a Woody Allen-style riff on the comic anxiety created by dying. Unfortunately, Shen takes the route of least resistance and even less fascination: a standard-issue talking head pastiche in which Becker's many followers and admirers (mostly psychologists and self-styled philosophers) ruminate with endless banality on why people are so afraid of the grave. Most of the talk is neither insightful nor illuminating—nor original, for that matter (and some of the palaver touching on religion will not sit well with those who take their faith seriously). Stock footage of deadly historic events pad the proceedings, while Gabriel Byrne's excessively dry narration could send viewers into a deathlike deep sleep. DVD extras include an audio commentary, “making-of” featurette, and deleted scenes. A lumbering talk-a-thon, this is not a necessary purchase. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)