How to Live Forever

Filmmaker and photojournalist Mark Wexler, whose mother recently died, entered his sixth decade obsessed with the idea of approaching mortality and unable to shake the feeling that most of his life had passed. Confronting his angst, Wexler made this engrossing documentary that is ostensibly about how people age and why some live longer than others, but is really a loving and thoughtful exploration of the meaning of life. Wexler visits the world's oldest person, meets a 94-year-old flying a kite on a California beach, and interviews the inventor of laughing yoga, as well as a nonagenarian cardiologist who's still performing open-chest surgery. Experts here talk about the possibilities of stopping aging scientifically (you could live 500 years!), an idea that others find appalling. Interviewees include celebrities such as Ray Bradbury (since deceased), Phyllis Diller (who recently died), and a vibrant Jack LaLanne, who declaims, “I can't afford to die, [it would] wreck my image” (sadly, he has also passed). In Okinawa, Wexler finds that the elderly are active, live lives of quiet purpose, eat a nutrient-rich/low-calorie diet, and survive into their 90s and beyond, suffering few disabilities. Wexler also visits a cryonic facility (where frozen dead people are stored) in Arizona, celebrates with Ms. Senior America, and stops in at a funeral directors convention in Las Vegas. While we're all headed for the same fate, Wexler—unlike a good many of us—is at least willing to talk about it. DVD extras include deleted scenes and extended interviews. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Gardner)