Being a Human Person
Archer’s MarkThere is something rather wonderous, almost terrifying, about a creative force accepting the end of their career. Most will just die in squalor or fade away into non-existence, puttering through barely seen, self-indulgent projects. Few, if any, will choose to retire. But Roy Andersson, subject of Being a Human Person, has done so. His directing of About Endlessness is, seemingly, his last. Audiences are rarely allowed to indulge in the creative process reaching its final stages naturally, and it is through the direction of documentarian Fred Scott that we are given the chance to here. The process of retirement is unravelled and undeterred.
“We should be grateful that art exists,” Andersson says, and that much is inherently true. His features have provided joy to audiences, and they should be grateful they exist. He makes films “about people,” Scott’s opening gives us the necessary preamble to Andersson’s active decision of retirement. His small-scale sets are broken down for the pleasure of the audience, and the incredible effect it has on the filmmaking process is captured with excellent detail and revealing camerawork from Scott. Being a Human Person is strong not just because it profiles a great artist, but because it gets to grips with his work, and what makes him such an interesting, powerful figure. There is a simplicity to it all that makes the finished project all the more brilliant, the train scene from You, The Living is of notable interest and exceptionally well explained.
What helps Being a Human Person is that Andersson, and Scott by extension, are such likeable people. A sadness trickles through this documentary, not because art has lost a great creative, but because he still dared to push forth with new and inventive ideas. He battles his own self-confidence and, at times, the lack of it. His desire to make movies above and around his home has been a definitive trait of his craft, and Being a Human Person has flashes and cuts that make that so obvious, yet don’t spoil the magic of Andersson’s projects. But it is not just the quality of his work that Scott captures, but the respect he has for others, and those others have for him. Those that work with him see it as a beautiful honour, and Andersson feels like a natural comfort living out the twilight of his career with the same passion he brought to it in the early years of his freshman efforts.
It is hard to remember, sometimes, that creatives that offer their work to audiences have interests beyond cinema. Acting, directing, writing, it is, at the end of the day, work. Should a viewer be surprised by retirement? Most careers offer retirement, and Being a Human Person has within it that simplicity, yet the surprise of it too. It is because the expectation is that these people are untouchable. They can never retire, for they live on the screen forever. But it is possible to bow out, and Being a Human Person contemplates the active choice of ending a line of creativity, and the formidable reasons behind it are well-developed and thoroughly interesting.