The Life We Leave, directed by JJ Gerber, premiered at SXSW on Friday afternoon at the Alamo Theater. Quite simply put, this is a holy film. It chronicles men and women transforming the funeral industry and brings us into sacred spaces—with profound respect and reverence for those we are watching—and asks us to reconsider what we will do with our remains when our time comes, because one of the few certainties of life is that it will. And while there are myriad ways in which we could die, when we do (if we haven’t previously expressed our wishes), those that we leave behind will be forced to decide what to do with our remains. They’ll likely be pressed with two options by the funeral industry, burial or cremation. The subjects of The Life We Leave are championing a third alternative, terramation (the process of human composting).
A brief summary from the SXSW program description: “When Washington state became the first in the world to legalize human composting, entrepreneur Micah Truman puts it all on the line to build the world’s first large-scale terramation facility. But when the conventional deathcare industry resists, he is forced to pivot, and must learn to care for the grieving while transforming his business. Alongside Funeral Directors, Brie Smith and Katey Houston, he begins to understand the double bottom line is the only way to truly profit. What begins as an ambitious venture becomes personal as they rediscover human connection, ritual, and legacy.”
To clarify, “terramation, or human composting, is an eco-friendly end-of-life process that uses microbes to transform a human body into nutrient-rich soil over 60–90 days. It is a sustainable alternative to traditional burial or cremation, placing the body in a vessel with organic materials (straw, alfalfa, sawdust) to create fertile soil.” What the SXSW program description above leaves out is that Micah, Brie, and Katey are also creating new rituals for grieving families. Gerber touched on this briefly in our conversation: “This will help people grieve in a new and healthy way. Rather than being simply handed a box of ashes. It’s a slower burn. You have that time. You can maintain the connection with the deceased for a longer amount of time.” Given this time, grieving family members are able to sit by the containers holding the deceased and spend more time with them as their corpses transform (see the image below). Something happens in this process that I don’t want to give away in this review, but the beauty of it is breathtaking.
Micah is a businessman with a conscience and a heart. Brie and Katey are holy practitioners. JJ is a loving witness to their work. Watching people grieve the death of their loved ones is never easy, especially when that loved one is a child or an infant, of which we see a couple in this film. Gerber’s decision to focus on these families and their experiences was intentional…as was his decision to reveal the corpses being terramated. When asked about this, he responded, “It came down to the work these guys do, and as outsiders we didn’t want to sanitize that. […] We have to bring the viewers into their world, and so we had to find a way to very respectfully do that. So we started with animals, and then moved to a human foot or hand and then finally to the body.”
Spiritual arguments against terramation don’t interest me, especially those that turn poetry into dogma. However, I wondered what legal roadblocks the process might face as it is currently legal in only 14 states. When I asked Micah what challenges there are, his response was swift: “There aren’t any. We originally thought this would be a blue state play. We just saw Georgia legalize this. The only thing that will stop a state is blocking the vote from getting to the floor. But if the vote gets to the floor, in any state, it will pass.”
Sure, pushback against it might come from long-standing members of the death care industry, but that shouldn’t be surprising, schooled as they have been in more traditional methods of disposition. When I asked Brie, a veteran of the industry, who was one of Micah’s first team members, about her experience, she responded:
Previously, my experience was transactional and hands off. For me, it always felt against the soul of who I am as a provider. I wanted to take people by the hand and walk them through something, whereas before, I was taking down information, swiping a credit card, and pushing their loved one into an oven. […] Now, it’s a more emotional experience. These are the most candid conversations about death I’ve ever had. […] We are trained a very specific way in school. One of the biggest “don’ts” is to not cry with the family. I’ve learned that having the real human conversations…being very open to talking to families about the condition of their loved ones…about what to expect…my communication has increased ten-fold. You have the hardest conversations with people who are having the hardest time of their life.
Amen and amen.
The Life We Leave will be playing at festivals in the months ahead. Hopefully it will find a distributor that understands how truly special this film is.