I have wrestled with survivor's guilt for a good majority of my life. A paraplegic/double amputee with spina bifida, I was originally given three days to live. 

Last rites were administered. 

I was on my way out. 

Except I wasn't. 

I recently arrived at the age of 60,  expected to be the first person in my family to go I've now become the last survivor. 

Life is strange, man. 

Academy Award nominee Sam Green tapes into that weirdness woven into a tapestry of awe and sentimentality with his latest feature documentary, The Oldest Person in the World. On the surface, The Oldest Person in the World is exactly what you expect it to be. Green's long fascination with world records, especially the world record for the world's oldest living person, led him to follow these people for over a decade. Having premiered at Sundance, The Oldest Living Person in the World is now set for a limited arthouse run with indie distributor Assembly. 

The Oldest Living Person in the World isn't exactly what I'd call a feel-good motion picture, though it'll leave you feeling remarkably contemplative and more than a little in awe of its subjects. While I'm sure there's a thing or two you can do to make yourself live longer, the truth is that you know and I know there's more than a little luck to it and an awful lot of randomness. I mean, c'mon. Dolly Parton has died before Keith Richards. WTF is up with that? 

The Oldest Living Person in the World got its origin story back in 2015 when Green discovered that the record holder at that time, Susannah Mushatt Jones, lived fairly close to him. He got curious. He kept getting curious. 

The Oldest Living Person in the World becomes more than this central idea it's based around as the story develops, life rolls on, Green himself faces his own health challenges, his son Atlas grows up, and Green himself continues to grapple with the death by suicide of his brother. 

Again, it's all really random. For one millisecond, we're all the youngest person in the world. 

Then, life happens. 

There's a warmth and an intimacy with Green that you can't help but embrace. The Oldest Living Person in the World occasionally bummed me out, to be honest, but Green keeps it afloat with his life-affirming spirit and awkward but believable warmth. I've got to be honest, there were times I was sitting here watching these folks and thinking to myself "No way in hell do I want to live like that," and yet there's something rather remarkable in their vulnerability and fragility that left me in a bewildered state. 

And truthfully, while I'm admittedly befuddled by my own long-term survival I'd be even more befuddled if 40-50 years down the road we're having this conversation about me and there's some filmmaker trying to figure out the secrets of someone living to 100 with spina bifida. 

It's never happened. That alone makes it sure tempting to try. 

I'm not sure that The Oldest Living Person in the World entirely works, perhaps a consequences of unexpected narrative threads and perhaps a product of the complete unpredictability of the journey. Yet, I'm fairly sure it works far more than it doesn't. 

In any given year, over 100 million people will be born. Each one, if only for a second, will be the youngest person in the world. Isn't it weird to think that in that very same year maybe only 1-2 people will become the oldest person in the world? 

Makes you think, man. The Oldest Person in the World makes you think.

Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic