To Be Alive! (1964)

This isn’t so much a documentary as a series of quick-fire portraits of life. Some are single frame and a little more extended, some share the picture with others and are gone in a flash, but all are delivered in a manner I felt had something of the heartbeat to it. From the mundanities of urban existence to those of rural. Older people offer us a perhaps more settled perspective whilst the younger ones - who feature more substantially and optimistically - offer more curious and adventurous ones as we are introduced to people of all ages being photographed from all around the globe using various techniques. Some of this is quite fun to watch, some less so, but whimsical as it can be at times, it really does what it sets out to say on the can and celebrates the myriad of things we and other creatures can do because we are, actually, alive!