People I Know: Mortality

Dave Huth's contribution to Videoblogging Week 2006 was a seven-part meditation on death and mortality, pieced together from interviews with friends and neighbors.

After seeing the first part, I decided to wait and watch the entire series in one setting, which is either a good idea or bad idea, depending on your point of view.

Huth was able to put his subjects at incredible ease--and their unguardedness is key to the emotional honesty of the series. But on top of that his intercutting of the various recollections and reflections is, in a word, masterful, with a sense for breathing and pauses that brings to mind some of the best moments on This American Life.

By the brief coda to Part 7 I was sobbing, and I needed to be with my loved ones.