The saying “your days are numbered,” Sam Green learns, originated in Lord Byron’s poem “Vision of Belshazzar,” which is somewhat ironically being recited in “The Oldest Person in the World” by the 117-year-old Violet Brown, for whom that doesn’t appear to hold true. Living in Jamaica without an end in sight, she remarkably can recite the verses in their entirety after first learning it at the age of 10, although it’s a mystery what she retains and what she doesn’t at this point, though she obviously has remarkable genes when her 96-year-old son can still come by the house. She was sought out by the filmmaker when she became the latest world record holder for age, an achievement that often is quite short-lived, and while it could be construed as a gimmick that Green makes it his mission from July 2015 on to pay a visit to the current title holder, something profound emerges as each passing seems to take an entire epoch of time along with it, yet the director is able to preserve something with his camera.
Since first making a name for himself with the more traditional historical doc “The Weather Underground,” Green’s great gift has been putting you more and more in his own perspective bursting with curiosity, wondering what a perfect world might look like in his 2010 “Utopia in Four Movements” when everyone’s idea of it is surely not the same and exploring perception in “32 Sounds,” setting up headphones for many of its public presentations for every audience member to wear and having the film hit differently almost literally. Often with a gentle voiceover, soft but slightly spicy, it can feel as if you’ve entered another realm where time seems to slow down and this approach feels even more effective than usual in his latest film, shot over 10 years, when he may set out to study longetivity but evolves into a celebration of living in the moment.
Fans of the filmmaker may already be aware of his fascination with world records since his 2014 short “The Measure of All Things” where he visited Guinness-anointed record holders of all types, but as he notes the journey to his latest feature began when the birthday party for the world’s oldest person Susannah Mushatt Jones was just a couple subway stops away from him in New York. She can barely stay awake when she’s asked to blow out the candles on her 116th birthday cake, and as her niece mentions with fascination, she appears to have regressed emotionally and psychologically to having the needs and desires of a child, primarily being receptive to touch, but the pictures that line the walls of her apartment describe an extraordinary life of self-sufficiency. When she finally does pass, the granddaughter of slaves and a daughter of sharecroppers leaves behind an incredible legacy when moving north from Alabama where she earned enough money as a nanny for others to not only afford a place in Brooklyn but provide college educations for much of her family without ever having children herself, yet the severed connection to the past that only she holds seems a bit tragic and requires couriers like her relatives and Green to carry it on.
The responsibility pushes Green to travel to Fukumoto, Japan and Toulon, France where subsequent elders has some wisdom to share, but appear to largely look forward to a peaceful end and gracefully, Green starts to wonder whether people actually should live this long as their faculties begin to diminish. The consideration is turned inward when the director faces an unexpected health crisis of his own, not long after the birth of his first child and when intimacy is a part of the package from the start with his films, a rumination on mortality cuts especially deep when his life is at risk. He may loathe asking the same question that others always do of the elders he speaks to, making “What’s your secret?” a last resort, but he does seem to stumble upon a satisfactory answer as his personal sense of purpose seems to sharpen and witnesses people finding joy where they can. (It goes against conventional wisdom that Nabi Tajima loves her Coca-Cola at 117, but rather than corroding her arteries, it seems like it’s an elixir of youth.) For much of its run time, “The Oldest Person in the World” often doesn’t feel anywhere near as weighty as it ultimately is with its wry humor and measured attitude towards death, but the biggest compliment that could be paid is that it doesn’t waste a second of your time when it conveys just how precious it is.
“The Oldest Person in the World” will screen again at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24th at 12:30 pm at the Megaplex Redstone, January 25th at 9 pm at the Rose Wagner Center in Salt Lake City, January 30th at 11:30 am at the Library Center Theater, and January 31st at 9:40 am at the Megaplex Redstone.