The life of morticians is shown in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion in Undertaker for Life! If the world didn’t need undertakers, the people would be pretty happy. Director Georges Hannan tackles the taboo profession of preparing the dead for burial with earnestness and humour. This includes comparing embalming to changing the transmission on a car or racing off like the cavalry to repair a broken tombstone.
My Thoughts on Undertaker for Life!
Running at just 52 minutes, Undertaker for Life! is a mid-length documentary that follows a handful of morticians through their daily routine. Director Georges Hannan injects much humour into the film, mainly through the documentary’s sound edit, which includes both atypical musical choices and the injection of various voices and sound effects. The end result is Undertaker for Life! being quite a fun watch.
Undertaker for Life! Preceding Shorts
Nicole
Filmmaker Chadi Bennani accompanies his mother, Dominique, as she cleans out her mother Nicole’s apartment. Nicole is a very introspective short about how difficult it can be to let go of someone after they are gone.
4/5
About Memory and Loss
A visual essay form filmmaker Amélie Hardy about the need to archive every bit of our daily lives. The basic thesis of this short is that history is a lesson on memory and that we are being pushed into a society of surveillance.
3.5/5
Last Respects
Winner – Betty Youson Award for Best Canadian Short Documentary
Father Claude Paradis is a Montreal priests who in 2014 started an annual ceremony to celebrate the lives of the “unclaimed.” Despite running just under 7 minutes long, Last Respects brings light to the fact that even the homeless and neglected deserve to be remembered after they pass on.
4/5