This Netflix Documentary film explores how to increase the vitality of life expectancy with host Dan Buettner, an American author and three-time Guinness Record endurance cyclist. In this four-part documentary series, Buettner goes with a crew and some local guides walking around small communities in five different locations around the world to meet people who average the age of 90 years, close to it or beyond 90 years, trying to understand the method and factors involved in living longer. This would be the first time one would take this initiative to take the first step to understand what it is to live longer and what the human body can endure on such a scale.
The documentary seeks to educate what the Blue Zones of the world bring to humanity. For the most part, these parts of the world are along the tropical line of the Earth. You can draw one line from one location of the world to the other on the map and you would find all five locations in the same region. With water bodies around. Less Land. More abundance of nature. The film’s heroes remain the elders who sport smiles (some toothless but that’s the fun part) that could light up your soul. They have found happiness within themselves and in their community.
Buettner’s method is to simply ask questions and meet as many people as he can to bring to us beautiful kitchens in Italy, grandmother and grandfather recipes with their habits that could help us if we slowly started to practice what they did to add more to our lives. Would it be more wholesome? Time is what we would need to risk for the gamble.
In 2003, Buettner began leading trips to certain destinations while collaborating with a variety of experts, including anthropologists, historians, dietitians, and geneticists to try and understand what are the methods that involve reverse engineering the concept of longevity. In this series, Buettner and the makers take us to locations like Sardinia in Italy, Okinawa in Japan, Monterrey in Nuevo Leon and Loma Linda in California. The series helps us view vast oceans serving as visual therapy for the otherwise worn-out consumer of content, providing an easy viewing and bringing us closer to finding ways of being happy with ourselves, our work and our cause.
Learning these precious secrets and methods would inspire waves of people and hopefully urban planners to seek better alternatives to healthy ways of life. Buettner’s explorations are little pieces of wisdom that will change the way we see life. The makers put a disclaimer saying any change to way of life or diet is not what they would advise but to be truthful, it is what the world needs more now than ever. If we consider ourselves part of nature, there is a way to save this planet. If anything, the pandemic has taught us at least this much.
The series is a joyous and fulfilling watch asking us to look at our lives closely to understand what is worth living for and to continue efforts in those areas that make us laugh and thrive. Live by your true core principles, rather than what you know cannot live long in your mind and your soul. Align with your true purpose and flourish.
This four-part documentary is currently readily available for viewing on Netflix.
