The Documentary "How to Live Forever"
Biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey is one of the figures appearing in the documentary film "How to Live Forever." It's played straight but isn't a serious piece, as this review notes:
It's a huge subject, vital to every living person in the world - what it means to grow old and how one can cheat or at least postpone mortality. Fortunately, Mark S. Wexler eschews ponderousness in favor of a wry, observant, open-minded approach in his most informative and often quite funny documentary How to Live Forever. ... The film opens May 13 in New York followed by a national expansion May 22.
Still, there you have Aubrey de Grey in theater distribution (again) - and the more folk to hear his message, the better. It's still the case that the vast majority of people are not aware of the state of the art in longevity science, the near term potential for progress towards the repair of aging, and how to help make it all happen. For all the work of advocates over the years, this message remains insufficiently repeated and too quiet.
Another commentary is entitled "A Little More Fear of Death, Please?":
The title is something of a misnomer: with his mother gone, and himself on the downslope of 50, Mark Wexler makes a general study of life-extension experts, self-proclaimed and otherwise. ... Wexler's "wisest" friend, Pico Iyer, tells him that death's finality makes sense of life (for who?), but the director barely addresses the fear of death [and] his grief over the loss of a parent is neither as intense nor as personal as, say, Ross McElwee's in Time Indefinite. ... Wexler settles on the lasting resonance of art as mortality's consolation prize. ... His film, though, is a cutesy binder of folk remedies offering inadequate balm.
A little more fear of death indeed - a sentiment I endorse. What's not to fear about the downward slope of degeneration, increasing frailty, pain, suffering, and the calm madness of a world that accepts all this and does next to nothing about it?