Name: The Passerby
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 58 min
Rating: 8
Cast: Northrop Frye, Donald McWilliams, Brian Moore

I have seen this movie a handful of times - mostly on Cinema Canada (CBC - late Thursday nights in Canada).

The first time I saw it I almost turned it off, because it got off to a real slow start, but then I found myself sitting with my eyes glued to the television set.

This movie is part narrative, part documentary, part existential question. This movie is about the pieces we leave behind that become the only proof we were ever here on earth - that we were even alive, had friends, had children, had any accomplishments.

The movie flows with the director narrating (I think) and speaking about events that led him to wonder about what is the realy legacy we leave when we die.  He tells the particularly profound story of how he found a suitcase abandonned by the side of the road.  Inside were photographs, letters, and momentos of one man's entire life - from childhood to manhood to the golden years and then it ends.  At the time he wondered why the case had been left by the side of the road - either because of indifference, housecleaning, or because someone was feeling too much pain to keep them - and so left the case with the physical documentation of one man's life to chance.  At the time the narrator wasn't thinking and immediately threw out the letters and written paper stuffs, but as time went on he became obsessed with who this man was.  Through the photographic evidence he had he pieces his life together as best he can - but notes that the substance is gone.  We see him, but we don't know him.  And these are all the pieces that remain of him. I was crying, it was truly heartbreaking.

The film goes on to speak of other stories and experiences, and interviews several prominent Canadian artists, authors, and poets - including one woman (I think it was JAne Urqhart, it has been a while) who tells the story of how a friend of hers died when she was still a kid and she grew up to one day realize that he had told only her many of the secrets they shared - she felt if she didn't tell others in her lifetime those intimite pieces of that boy's life would be lost forever and no one will ever know them.  She said this inspired her to write - so that part of him would not fade away to ages.

I think of this film all the time, and it has kind of changed my outlook on life, and how I share my life with others.  In the end there is no amount of effect we can have on history that won't forget the truly intimate aspects of who we are, and the truly special moments we shared with others.  So in the end, what is our legacy to the ages...

If you live in Canada you can rent this movie for free through the NFB (I think...), but it comes around once or twice a year on Cinema Canada.

If you like this film, I highly recommend a similar one through the NFB called "Let Me Go".

The documentary is a form of non-fiction storytelling that aims to present factual information, insights, and perspectives on real-world subjects, events, issues, or people. Documentaries can cover a wide range of topics, including history, science, culture, social issues, nature, biographies, and more.

Dziga Vertov in Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

In The Passerby, poems, interviews, home movies, photographs, and footage shot around the globe meld into haunting impressions of lives lived. What can we learn from images and motion, from expression and gesture? In this meditation on the mysteries of existence, filmmaker Donald McWilliams' intriguing juxtapositions and his use of music and optical effects excite the imagination.

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The Passerby

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