Original subtitles

You know my life story?

Not really.

How would you summarize your life in a couple of sentences?

Up and down.

I'm the kind of person I wish I could stay forever young.

Because I still would have a lot to do.

Don't make a film out of this.

Whatever you do.

You wouldn't get the penny for it.

But, Peter, I guess I'm getting old.

And maybe I can't spend so many birthdays with you anymore.

Maybe one more, but just hope for it.

Thanks for everything. For your support. For your kindness.

And for loving me. That's it.

Thank you.

Is that okay?

It's quite a speech.

Was it?

You mean...

Did you write that ahead of time?

No, you're kidding.

No, I just took it as I came along.

Okay, very nice.

That's it?

Yeah.

Okay. Well, thank you.

Do you want me to tell you the story of my daddy?

Sure.

When I was happy all day long, then all of a sudden I got dizzy.

Until I fell to the floor.

What if a certain life was scared?

But things still happen when you don't expect it.

Until I am, I'm much better, but not quite myself.

Hopefully, it will all go by and it will be in the past.

And I will kick my heels again and go dancing somewhere.

He writes, "Sometimes people ask you, when is your birthday?"

But you might ask yourself a more interesting question.

For that day, which is called my birthday, where was I?

If you ask a cloud, "How old are you?

Can you give me your date of birth?"

You can listen deeply and you may hear a reply.

You can imagine the cloud being born.

Before being born, it was the water on the ocean's surface,

or it was in the river, and then it became vapor.

It was also the sun because the sun makes the vapor.

The wind is there too, helping the water to become a cloud.

The cloud does not come from nothing.

There has been only a change in form.

It is not a birth of something out of nothing.

If one asks the question, "How did I get here?"

Then an inevitable next question would be, "Who were my parents?"

I recall a story told many times of how my

mom, working as an au pair girl in Europe,

was handed a note over a neighbor's hedge,

scrawled with a name and address of some nice people in Canada.

That was the prompt in 1955, which led Julie and Freddie, my parents,

to sail the great ocean into an unknown future,

with just enough money to their name for a

return trip to Switzerland, their homeland.

They married a couple of years later, and I was born.

Many decades later, I stand here on an island off the coast of Africa.

Contemplating the expression, "The grass is always greener on the other side."

Wondering about how that might relate to my

parents and the migration of many of our ancestors.

Looking westward, I'm reminded of the explorers and the havoc they've wreaked,

leading us to where I stand today.

Recording now an imprint of this horizon,

hoping to find something that I cannot yet see.

Anyway, you're okay?

Yeah, I'm fine.

You had a good flight?

Yeah.

Okay.

Getting unpacked, already filming a little bit.

But snow?

Yes, I'm pointing the camera at Ray Toble.

Well, haven't you got enough snow over there now?

I know.

It was like the last couple of weeks was all green and sunny,

and the day I arrived, it starts snowing.

What else is new in good old Switzerland?

I mean, it was all green, now it's all white?

Yeah.

You know, nature is crazy.

I mean, this is already the middle of March for heaven's sake.

It's interesting.

Oh, it's about boiling.

I have lunch.

Good.

Okay, well, let's talk soon.

Okay, fine.

Okay, bye.

Thank you for calling Peter.

Yeah, bye-bye.

Stop the snow.

I'm trying.

Okay.

Okay, bye.

Bye.

Strange, isn't it?

These paper objects can allow so much to happen.

It's too abstract.

It doesn't look like 50,000.

You have to find the equivalent in real life.

Workers' years earning or something like that.

It's just paper.

How did it come to be that this is in your hands,

coming to my hands?

My personal family version is there was this time,

100 years ago, where this thing, the new thing was coming.

So it was electricity.

I don't come with family who build power plants,

but our production does everything.

To distribute electricity.

But it was very simple, right?

On and off.

On and off.

Switches.

Yes.

And plugs.

Yes.

The most simple answer is it's not history.

It's capitalism.

Someone in Oregon by the seaside gets up every morning,

starts working at the factory seven o'clock.

At the end of the year gets this.

And I get so much extra that I can handle what you give.

As someone who inherited, it's like the question,

how do I deserve it?

What is the work of mine?

What did I put in to get this?

So you have every freedom in life.

I don't know how you choose to live.

Here's which line here and what you do with it.

I came to the conclusion it's worth

given to you for a film project.

But not every possibility is in the money.

What's missing?

The knowledge of telling the right story

at the right time, that it really gets hurt.

Maybe the money gives you time to tell the story

but if it's the right one.

What moves the world?

Where do things happen?

How was it possible that people started

to think differently maybe, move differently,

got things into motion?

Money was sure involved but not only.

You lost your father way too soon.

And my father is coming here.

He's 90 years old.

I just wonder if you have any suggestions

about how I should spend my time

with my father when he's here.

Spend time with him.

We talked to me also as someone who has children herself.

So it's a question that accompanies me a lot.

It's like how to spend good time with them, honest time.

I don't know, spend time together.

Don't film.

No, I will film.

Yeah, I know you shouldn't.

I do that all the time.

He is used to it anyway.

So I mean, that's how I process things

and that's how I learn and that's how I share.

And I don't think it's a bad thing.

Even though I have a love-hate relationship

with filmmaking.

I don't know if the word is tropes

or patterns of an individual's experience

that come out in their expression.

Like a painter will start a certain way

or will have a set of gestures that repeat themselves.

That's that bad note.

And you think, oh, I'd like to play

outside of my familiar tropes.

Is it possible to do that?

You know, the things that you've learned

and responded to and resisted

and been attracted to, all those things

are what make you decide in the moment

to do a certain thing.

Habits.

Habits.

I think the way that that gets challenged

is like the wrong note, you know?

Or when something is presented to you

that you've never dealt with before

and you find a way to deal with it.

Of course, you're still dealing with that wrong note.

With your familiar ways of responding,

but it's taking you somewhere new.

How do you get prepared to react if you don't plan?

You get tuned.

I look up the meaning of the name of the body of water

to which all these tributaries lead.

The Rhine River.

It turns out that the word Rhine means flow,

finding the path of least resistance.

Like the water coming off the hills.

So I go letting one thing lead to the next

until I find myself as a passenger in my neighbor's car.

Milan, you call them?

Yeah, a red Milan.

There are black ones and red ones.

It's nice to be the passenger for a change.

Right? Yeah, yeah.

I've been driving a lot.

Yes, sometimes it's really comfortable

to just sit there and look around.

This is the place where I grew up.

Now it's just a run through a village, you know.

The character is lying beneath the castle,

the old part of this village.

Even the place where we go now,

last time I was there with 29.

After your performance in the cave,

it hangs to my mind.

And so next day I went there where we go now

to look if it's still around.

What amazes me is the stream is always flowing, always.

We are a part of the evolution

and maybe someday we are gone, maybe not.

Maybe something else is coming

like this artificial intelligence.

I'm not afraid about the future of the planet.

I mean, future is a humankind...

But I must say I'm glad I'm already in my age.

The good times and all these change and everything,

we experienced it and what's now is just the extreme of it.

Too much of everything, 24 hours a day.

Like these trucks here.

It's like the flow of the river, the trucks moving stuff around.

I'm going to hurry.

- So I come with you or? - Yeah, if you like,

you can come with me. - The dogs are okay?

Yeah, yeah.

White.

That's what we need.

- We need this for our... - Yeah, maybe, maybe.

I have to, you know, we have to figure it out together

if we need it or not.

Hey.

Let's get on with it.

They took out the iron of this mountain.

They would send it down with little cars down to the sea

and there it got loaded on ships.

And there was a factory which they got the iron out

and transformed this stone to steel.

I remember to have my 29th birthday in this cave,

which is a long time ago.

I remember that some guy gave me this kind of knife,

you know, the blade jumps out.

This I remember.

I remember just having a good time.

Three or four from that guy's are already dead.

They're gone.

I have the tendency to hope after death,

we come together and see each other again.

For me, as long as people remember you,

that's the life after death.

And no, it has to be enough.

I used to trade tattoos for things.

If I was in places where people didn't have any money,

in Italy I had a nice house to live

and I had it in exchange for doing tattoos on the guy's sons.

Some people still come to me

even if I live up there in the hills.

For me, it's like all these things are already there.

My part is to get them out.

I make it visible.

Everybody wants to leave tracks behind him.

To have something which reminds you of a personality

and an individual.

Hey.

Can you hold the rabbit in the light?

I don't know if it's to see.

The rabbit smoking a pipe.

I was actually always a kind of hot-blooded person.

So it took not much and I would explode, you know.

So I hurt myself often through this.

And the meaning of it is the rabbit is smarter than his enemies.

That's why he got the time to smoke a pipe.

And before he does anything,

he relaxes and he thinks about it.

It helped me, I must say.

It often stopped me from making mistakes.

It helped.

It reminds me of subconscious somehow.

So this fits pretty much the expression

that some place else is maybe nicer than where we are.

You just see the light out there,

but you don't even know exactly what's there.

It's just light.

Yes, maybe there.

Maybe we can go back there.

It is a symbol of...

Shall we leave a couple of marks so we can find our way back?

Yeah.

It's like a dream.

It's reality, but it doesn't look real.

Fire!

The dust is the end of everything.

Combined with water, it's even possible that one day

some life crawls out of it again.

It's quiet.

And we picked a really nice day.

And there's still a bit of snow on it,

It's a snowdrop.

See this tree, it has like a branch

that grew out of it that is bigger than the original tree.

Or almost as big.

Strange?

That's nature.

What does that thing,

the top on the right side?

It's sort of dying?

Yeah.

But the branch on the left is bigger.

Than the main tree?

Because the main tree is feeding

the little kid on the left side.

And I guess maybe the,

because the main tree is dying,

it's putting all the nutrients to the kid.

Exactly.

So we have already solved one problem of survival

in the Alps.

When you think of Switzerland, when you're in Canada,

is this the kind of thing you think of?

Well, that's very much part of it.

So, so different.

You see the perspective from the top of the world.

The air is good.

And I'm always astounded and amazed

at how many people still walk.

Bench, it's a bench.

Absolutely surprising, I wouldn't think like that,

but it's still a lot of ash.

Little woman, lots of ash.

Yeah.

Goodbye.

Bye, Mum. See you up there.

Really real fast.

So now she's gonna go all the way to Basel,

all the way to the North Sea,

all the way up in the air,

and rain down on us back in Canada.

And I will kick my heels again

and go dancing somewhere.

The two lights out there.

Yeah.

Below the...

Below the, the back?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then you see a long stretch of houses below.

Yeah.

And that's where you, where Julie had a room.

Mom, I guess I was about 20 then.

So it's 70 years ago, but it still looks the same.

So do you remember specific stories

when you look out there?

Not really, I mean, we always in the school

had to go for major walks.

We had to walk a two day trip

along the top of that whole ridge.

Then next day walk down and take the train back to Zurich.

But it was a modest kind of a life we had.

It was also our life built as concern

as to what the route is going to end up.

It always happened at night,

the sirens went off, it was frightening,

Then we had to take our belongings

and go down to the basement nearly every night.

It was a fear beginning when I was three, four years old.

To be on the ground, never knew, you know,

that all it needed is one guy not quite sure where they are

and drop the bombs.

It was a scary kind of sound

when you had two, three hundred bombs flying over

you're not that high up.

And of course it happened to Schaufhausen.

The Germans, they stopped Schaufhausen

for being on the wrong side of the train

and then they dropped bombs on the side of the afternoon.

But that's war.

And it doesn't take much.

Now it just needs a push of a button.

Whoever is the strongest bully in the neighborhood park

wins the war.

That's what I'm really concerned about.

That's part of life today.

There's competition for food, there's competition for money.

The population worldwide has increased to the point

when you have to really begin to worry

whether you'll have food for all of us in a few years.

The question is how much can the world support

and how can we take care to make sure

that the world doesn't kill off all these species

because once they're gone, they're gone.

Ooh, it's getting cold.

It's going to dark fast.

Because the sun has to have some rush too.

It's a beautiful view from up here.

It's interesting for us 55 year olds

to know what it's like to be an 88 year old.

That's true too.

Except that

we behave like an 80 year old.

What does an 80 year old behave like?

I don't know myself.

Except I don't want to behave that way.

So do you think when you look through binoculars,

you can see the future?

Oh yeah?

Yes, you can.

Do you think so?

I heard about that.

You did?

Yes.

Where did you hear about that?

I heard that from an old professor ages ago.

Ages ago?

Yep.

Was he living through binoculars?

Yes, yes.

I just thought to think where that was.

And I laughed and said to his cool, cool.

But now you think it's true?

I don't know, yeah.

So if you look through these, you can see the future.

The future.

Can you see the future?

You can make up the future.

If you can't see it, make it up and believe in it.

Much of the world has gone into lockdown.

Many of us confined in our own homes with extra time for introspection,

for rummaging through basements,

exploring forgotten items that characterize who we are.

I find old tins of celluloid containing images etched as memories

that need only a bit of light to be brought back into recognition.

Okay.

The very first film I ever made from high school in Super 8

proves the theory that one always makes the same film over and over again.

It is the story of a young man who has mistakenly sold a most well-kept secret.

The dream of death.

This will be the interview with the Dalai Lama

on the 28th of December 1985, take one.

Marker.

In another tin are images of first visits

to India where I encountered the Dalai Lama.

I recall him explaining in broken English how

matter and consciousness are two different things.

And then laughing as he does, exclaiming,

"Why would there be a limitation on life in this universe?"

And my parents, who I see here as younger than I am now,

like friends I might have had,

instead of elders who I always needed to impress or obey,

or love in that way, you can only love a parent.

These images I see again after 37 years are like visiting an old version of myself.

Feels like a forgotten reincarnation,

a glimmer of recognition to this life I once lived.

Never have I been so aware of the treasure that is memory,

which knows we've been alive.

Okay, Freddy, so this is how we can talk.

But I don't have a camera.

No, I'm just filming this right now, but it's confusing

because there's cameras pointing at cameras giving feedback.

That's you in Skype.

That's me in Skype.

So this is how we can communicate in the day of day and age.

Corona virus.

Oh, it sounds like this.

These are here.

Moving back.

There's mum.

So you feel like you're getting weaker like every day?

Well, not every day,

but my whole body gets, you know, truly weaker.

Yeah, you don't get much exercise, right?

I go up and down the stairs, ten times a day or more...

Hey.

There.

The rabbit.

Rabbit.

My rabbit.

How old do rabbits get?

I don't know.

He's been around for a while.

He was here when Mom was here.

Yeah.

He's your buddy, isn't he?

Yeah.

Oh, he's changed since then.

I've got a good life.

I always wonder what's going to happen to me.

I'm in good spirit. I'm in good health.

So you're gonna live to 105?

If the body hangs on and my mind is still

halfway there, it wouldn't be a bad life, actually.

You know, I have a house paid off.

I have a little bit of money left in the bank.

I don't need anybody.

I have a rabbit.

But eventually you still need some company.

You always need to meet someone.

Otherwise you become morose.

To speak directly to everyone who's lost a loved

one, if you're grieving, know that you're not alone.

We are here for you, even through this incredibly tough time.

And you remind us why it's so important to

do everything we can to keep one another safe.

We all need to do our part.

We can't let up now.

So to everyone, stay at home.

And no matter what, stay two meters apart if you do have to go out.

When it gets hard, let's remember that we're all in this together.

Thank you.

I'm now ready to take your question.

Thank you.

The first question, Kate Bongaro, Bloomberg.

I don't know how many million people on this earth.

The virus is a way of one of the higher forms of God upstairs.

There are too many of you here.

And I will send a virus down that will get rid of a third of the population.

And then we can start again.

So you think it's a God, not nature?

Nature is God.

And God is nature.

Do you believe in reincarnation?

I have a feeling that mankind as it is today is not the final addition.

If I should come again, I wouldn't want to be a leader.

You wouldn't want to?

No.

What would you want?

A follower.

How come?

You're too exposed as a leader.

You're no damn good if you're my age anymore.

Six o'clock of the rain.

You know the expression that grass is green around the other side?

Yeah.

How do you interpret that, first of all, into your life?

You always have the feeling that somewhere else is better.

I wanted to see the world.

I didn't want to necessarily see Toronto

and be staying here for the rest of my life.

It just so happened.

In many ways, a lot of unexpected happenings.

There are a number of things in our lives that just were points of new direction.

You know, these are the things in life that you can't foresee.

So what do you think about, you know, us making

a film that explores the world in a similar way?

You don't know exactly what you're looking for

but you move from one thing to the next.

You react and you make connections and make discoveries.

Doesn't mankind do that already?

They went from here to the moon.

It's expanding your knowledge beyond where we are.

Consciousness has its own identity.

When we are getting deep sleep or dreaming,

it's at that time the level of consciousness is more further deeper.

When someone is completely faint, no more breathing,

during that moment the consciousness level still reaches deeper.

The furthest or the deepest level of consciousness we believe when we are dying.

The green grass rose all around, and on that limb, there was a little nest,

the bread is little nest, that's your evidence, see.

Now the nest on the limb, on the tree, on the roots, and the roots,

and the dirt, and the hole, and the hole in the ground,

the green grass rose all around and around,

the green grass rose all around.

Ever yell at your little darlings?

Breeders takes you behind the front door for a

painfully hilarious look at the reality of raising children.

Covid-19 and not the flu.

So this is still an issue, and I hope that

in the midst of this very big decision...

...the president.

...that we anticipated this year.

The stores are stocking up at a level that's beyond Christmas time.

Go and buy, enjoy it, have a nice dinner, relax, because there's plenty,

but you don't have to buy the quantities because it's...

Toilette paper!

A basis is rapid, it's definitely filling them,

but it's something that we have tremendous control of.

I think very important to young people, people of good health,

and groups of people just are not strongly

affected, elderly people that are not well.

Mr. Vice President, why don't you plan to build more

hospital beds so tens of thousands of Americans don't die,

and how many more ventilators are you

looking at ordering so people don't suffocate?

Let me let the Secretary step up.

Do you feel like it's giving you anxiety in your place?

Uh, yes.

We've been dehumanized a lot of the natural world,

and trying to make humans not pedestal.

And I think the psychedelics have really

helped us to realize that we are all part of nature.

I still try to understand what is behind all this,

and because I have the feelings of all virus things, like a curtain,

and behind this curtain things have to be done, I just do it.

And this makes me more nervous than the virus.

After all, poison also likes meaning, and gardens, and dances on the beach.

Unfortunately, it also light the faces of our lovers.

Some things lose their importance, some

others gain importance, that's also interesting.

What gain importance?

Hum, the humor.

Now we're in Colombia, it's been like, they're right at the beginning.

It's such a small place, it's so well identified that people came from Spain,

and they gathered the plane, and it's all traced back to two or three flights.

Of course, I thought also that it's a way of the

nature to defend itself against the human being,

which hurts the nature so much, and for such a long time.

There's a moment when it's enough, and when it reacts somehow.

The virus creates a lot of bullshit, and

it's a lot of disaster going on, of course.

But there are so many other beautiful things happening,

the dolphins that are swimming through the canals again.

I have one friend who's very sick with it.

The view from inside is very different from what we hear on the outside.

I tend to think it is a force of nature.

Hmm, it's so difficult to find the truth.

This is a blood thinner too, or it's not?

Okay, okay, okay, thank you.

Sorry.

It is alright.

No one knows what the fuck is going on, basically.

And so they're just throwing wrapping stuff at me to try to see if it works.

On paper, it's perifarditis, and like, pleurisy, whatever.

It was like when you have water around your heart.

But it's so much more than that now, because

I've started having like, urologic symptoms.

I still can't taste and smell anything.

I have tasted for like, probably 37 days now.

And the people here at the House of the Walnut right now, it's like the insane.

They're wearing like, construction goggles and like, surgical masks.

And it's crazy, like, there's no protocol.

There's people walking around with that proper gear

like, everyone's just going to get so sick.

But you're strong with being sick.

You're good at it.

You're good at overcoming.

I hope so.

I remember her during our audience with the Dalai Lama.

Our director asks the question, "Can you tell us what reincarnation is?"

And to this day, I recall an elaborate analogy of a response,

comparing the actual physical matter of celluloid to the human body.

And the image exposed by light into that celluloid,

to the consciousness that occupies the body.

At least that is how I remember it.

"Inpermanent" does not mean the end.

Rather, they say it means transformation.

The monks explain.

It is continuity, the continuation of things.

Like the rebirths we take for granted, every year in the forest.

Why did they get the name of "Ephemeral?"

Well, I think because of their nature, that

they're only here for a short period of time.

So it's literally what they are.

In every flower, there's a kind of logic with its morphology,

and the flower shaped downwards to attract

low-flying native bees that come around this time of year,

and approach things from below as opposed to from above.

This wasn't here yesterday.

This is something, it's actually called "Furie Bell's" rather quaint name,

but the yellow flower right there.

The viruses aren't actually alive, which is one thing that kind of throws me,

like they're on a mission to replicate

themselves, just like everything in nature is.

But the purpose it serves...

is there any intention beyond replicating itself?

We're all about replicating ourselves too, at whatever cost,

up to the environment that makes our lives possible.

Normally we're all in the position of being the top predator.

Our replication is the supreme priority, above all.

Perhaps in some way the virus is a mechanism

within nature itself for bringing things into alignment.

And unfortunately for us, we're in the position of

being the victims in a kind of a cosmic reckoning.

And yet if you look at it more objectively, it's also

something that happens within the course of evolution,

that viruses will strike every so many decades or centuries,

and they have a huge levelling effect on the state of the planet at that time.

I think we thought that humanity in a way was beyond nature and beyond history,

that we were so much more ultimately important than any other species.

And I say that in that kind of, you know, that selfishness that we can have.

Well nice you got me waving.

Yeah.

Because I was actually filming you,

and I could see my shadow on the tree in front of me.

It's quite interesting.

Nothing here exists in isolation.

And that our normal state of survival right now is to isolate ourselves.

I got Tony in the foreground.

I should get a shot at that.

Sure.

That situation just doesn't exist in a naturally occurring habitat like this,

where everything is interdependent.

Nothing is isolated.

Wow. You love the sound of the water.

Mm-hmm.

Oh yeah, it's the whole water.

I love this. I love the air.

With the pandemic, we've had the feeling of

like, you know, the time has virtually stopped.

And it's because everything about the

normal course of human affairs is all in frozen.

It's in limbo.

And yet here you see that things continue.

It creates the possibility of an after.

When we walk through the forest looking at ephemerals,

we're looking at these glimmers of life that are coming and going.

And we ourselves could be like that.

I like the idea of it.

I mean, I love the idea as a child, especially.

Can you tell me the, uh, what happened to you as a child again?

Um, it was so real. It was so... it was not a dream.

You knew it wasn't a dream. It was just too real.

I've only had that feeling once in my whole life.

And that was when I was about three years old.

I told everybody that, uh, I had another life.

I called it my olden days.

I was in Poland. I lived in Poland.

And the only part of my old life that I

remember was sitting at a table with my sister.

And I was facing her. She was very blond, had sort of a roundish face.

I knew that we lived in a very tall house,

tall, skinny house in Poland, um, in a city.

It was like a row house.

And all of a sudden, I got up, and I went running down a very, very, very long

flight of stairs and out into the street.

And that's it. That's all I remember.

Um, it's kind of a mundane memory.

When I talk about it, I can remember what my sister looked like.

But I remember people, grown-ups

especially, saying, "Well, it must have been a dream."

And I was adamant that it wasn't.

More of a grown-up thing that I put onto it is that it was the last seconds of my

life, or the last couple of minutes of my life.

Because that's not necessarily true. I don't think I told people that as a child.

That's something you've put on top of it.

Possibly, yeah. Yeah, possibly. In other words,

it might have just been a fragment of a memory.

Um, like, not really an event. Just a little

fragment, a little bit of residue of the last life.

- Hello? - Hi.

Hi, Peter. How you doing?

Oh, I'm not sure. Um, I've been bad still.

What are you feeling?

Oh, uh, I don't know.

Uh, where are you?

I'm at home.

You're at home.

And I am where?

You're at your home.

If I am at my home, um, well, I would appreciate if

you could perhaps come here one of these, uh, hours.

Okay.

Okay.

Um, have you, uh, like, did you sleep? How are you feeling?

Well, I, I think I'm okay.

Um, I'm really not quite sure.

And we don't want to bring you to the hospital, right?

No, no. Don't take me to the hospital.

Okay.

But I like to talk to somebody.

Okay, well, I'll come over. I'll be there.

Okay.

Mm.

All right.

Hey there.

What's there?

It's me with the camera.

Who?

That time you woke up. Usually you don't wake up when I come in.

Who?

Were you dreaming?

It's the, uh...

- Is there any room open there? - Yeah.

Do you have trouble breathing at all?

No.

And nothing hurts?

No.

You just feel weak.

Yeah.

Do you feel like a nervous energy at all?

No.

But what about your thoughts? Are they clear? Can you think clearly?

Or is everything a bit cloudy?

What about?

Your thoughts.

My what?

Your thoughts. Your thinking.

Not really.

Not really what?

Are you sure you don't want to go see a doctor?

No.

So what do you think the best thing to do is?

Just relax?

Oh, I don't... I don't know what to say.

I can make that.

I can't tell you.

Are you sentimental about certain things?

Which happen or gives them to you?

Your wife?

Like attached to certain things?

Attached to the feeling for it.

Yeah. Nostalgia.

Nostalgia?

You know what nostalgia is?

No.

Well, nostalgia is a feeling when you look back on something and you...

you reminisce on it or you miss it.

Yes. Yes.

I do.

Learning much so.

Some people don't.

Do you?

Yeah.

Well.

That means you have feelings.

You have feelings for certain things.

Which your life or out grows to you and you can't forget.

You remember it.

No?

Yeah.

Good.

Because in my opinion,

that is important in life.

To have feelings.

Yeah.

Are the birds out there?

A little one.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh dear.

What have you been feeling lately?

Home.

I've been feeling a little bit not so well.

What would you want to do now the most?

Well, relax a bit.

So you're happy sitting in your chair?

Yeah.

Lying in your bed?

Relax, meet, the cloak and mail.

Is there anything else that would make you happy?

No.

So you feel content?

Yeah.

Are you more in your dreams or more in this world out here?

I don't know.

A little bit more here.

And you still like it here in this world?

Yeah.

You want to stay here in this world for a while?

Yeah.

Have we reached the end of our walk?

No, we haven't... you haven't made it to the stream yet.

Just around the corner.

Shall I leave the camera here and just go look, or shall I take the camera with me?

I think you might want the camera.

All right.

I think nature's pretty opportunistic.

Each thing wants to survive.

In humans, it feels like a kind of vanity

to always be concerned about your survival.

Trying to enhance your conditions, get more, eat better, have a nicer house.

It feels like a vanity in humans, but I don't know if it is.

It might just be nature.

I feel... when I get into the rhythms of nature, I feel at ease.

And I've been more able to attune myself to those

rhythms because there's been fewer distractions.

I think I've just felt great relief in being able to

be out in the natural world watching the spring come.

That's Daisy.

Daisy the bird?

Daisy the dog.

I think because my parents died recently

a lot of under thinking,

a lot of the thinking that my body's doing

that I'm not doing consciously, I think it is about them.

If I have space in my brain, if I'm out walking or gardening

and I pay attention to what I'm thinking about, it's usually about them.

It's funny you say that because there is this kind of

processing that goes on in spite of your brain and your intellect.

It's almost like you can turn all that off and there's

the living body underneath that that's dealing with things.

I feel like somehow I've processed a lot about their deaths

in the last two months, but in a way I can't articulate it.

I mean, I think that we just understand complexity better as we age.

As we gain experience, we understand that things are more than they appear to be.

Does that make you want to say less?

Maybe it does.

It makes me resist drawing conclusions.

There is something that's changed about the

way I want to learn or the way I'm learning.

I actually feel resistant. I didn't want to read anything that anybody

had written about the death of their parents or death in general.

Even though I know there would be a lot to learn.

There's also the thing that's very real as you age of realizing or understanding

your insignificance in the greater scheme of things.

And I think that's one of the reasons why it's more wonderful than ever to be in

the woods because it supports the feeling that starts to take over you as you age.

That you really don't mean a jot.

And I don't have a problem with that.

I don't have a problem with not meaning a jot.

Two-thirty.

Freddie managed to avoid COVID, but he kept falling

down, eventually hitting his head and breaking his hip.

Freddie, baby. Hi. Hi. I'm taking another picture of you.

I spent nine days with Freddie in the hospital, reading passages of books out loud,

playing music, speaking in improvised monologues.

I explained how making films, recording images

and sounds, was something like a religion to me.

With the hope that there might be lessons learned as we look back.

You want to talk about the future?

What about the future, Freddie?

The future of the house.

Right.

You were on that street for such a long time.

Did you think you had lived there for fifty-three years?

Sorry, I have to sent him upstairs.

I understand. Yeah, thank you for the time.

Ta-ta!

What?

Slightly nibbled at by our son, Peter.

A delicious treat for Thanksgiving Day.

There we go.

Ta-ta!

Ta-da!

Okay. Now.

Does our chief executive appreciate this...

What do you see, Freddie?

I see a guy with too much hair.

I need to go to the hairdresser.

I see a guy who I don't quite like the eyes.

Yeah, it's funny.

It's sort of...

Sad.

Too stern.

You always had stern eyes.

Stern eyes.

God, you could...

And my...

My...

...mouth hangs down too much.

It should be born.

How did that...

Do you see the Freddie you know, or do you see a different Freddie?

I... I... You know, I see the Freddie you know.

And here, I have a guy, I think 86 years of age.

86.

Five years ago, Freddie.

You should grow a long hair.

So, do you think when you look through binoculars, you can see the future?

Oh, yeah?

Yes, you can.

Do you think so?

I heard about that.

You did?

Yes.

Where did you hear about that?

I heard that from an old professor ages ago.

Ages ago?

Yep.

Was he looking through binoculars?

Yes.

Yes.

I just thought to think where that was.

And I laughed and thought he was nuts.

But now you think it's true?

I do, yeah.

So if you look through these, you can see the future.

The future?

Can you see the future?

You can make up the future.

If you can't see it, make it up and believe in it.

I mean, it's funny, when I was going into the hospital yesterday,

I was thinking about giving birth.

Hmm.

Even though this involves pain and departure and all these things,

it's as poignant as birth, you know, and as important.

It's like, it's actually like a labor.

Death is like a labor.

It's not that it just comes around.

It's like a deep, deep thing that you're kind of working on,

emotionally, but also in the material world, on all kinds of levels.

You're laboring the death.

Yes, and I sort of realized the whole last

two years of my mom's life was the labor.

Well, I'll talk to you soon, maybe.

Okay.

Okay.

Enjoy the beautiful day.

It is, isn't it?

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Hey, thanks for the coffee.

It is all right.

Now, as we go, the sun shines again.

I hope it didn't keep you too long.

No.

Can we maybe see the clip before we are buried?

The clip?

That film you made today.

Yeah.

It's more than a clip.

It takes almost as long to look at as it did to shoot it.

Oh, God.

I'm scared.

And then people will say, "Who the heck are they?"

You don't need to tell that.

And put Mom's name on top.

For what?

- Well, you're the star of the movie. - Yes, I am.

And then mine in very small print down below.

And you have to say, "Also appearing..."

Right?

Yeah.

Oh, dear.

Does it run?

There are certain things you cannot forget.

You don't lose.

It's in you.

You think back at the good times.

However, there are other times too.

What will happen to us afterwards? Will we disappear completely?

Or do we get to reborn?

You know, we have to communicate with Peter when we're up there.

Yeah, how are we gonna do that?

Well, maybe some way it's going to be found by fast email.

By that time, we know something new like anyone, like everything else.

Looking good, Freddy?

Tongue and groove.

It slides on by itself and stays closed during the entire operation.

- That's perfect. - Okay.

It's not required, but this is just a little tiny dowel that

secures the lead in place. It's usually kind of warped a bit from the moisture.

We'll get Dad in here.

- Hi, how are you? - I'm fine, thanks.

- This is Caine and Derek. - Hi, there.

They're going to help us today. This is Peter and Bruce.

So, do we lift?

Bruce, if you want to come in, we ask you please leave your camera...

The gentleman will open the door here,

see a little kind of cubby, if you will, look

at crypt. And when this container gets rolled

inside, it makes a small sound just with friction.

If you wish, sir,

you can do it yourself, just press a button.

Okay, I'll push the button.

Freddy, are you going to dance with Mommy?

I almost cut myself... maybe we should go over there...

That's it.

That's it.

Wow.