Zen & the Art of Dying (M)

74 mins ★★★

Booked up 18 months in advance, Zenith Virago was a marriage celebrant in demand. But it’s the Byron Bay resident’s ‘‘moonlighting’’ job that is the subject of Broderick Fox’s documentary. She’s a ‘‘deathwalker’’, a ‘‘funeral celebrant’’ aiming to ‘‘demystify death’’, by challenging traditional farewells.

As Fox’s portrait reveals, Virago isn’t motivated by a belief in life after death, but rather a desire to offer an alternative more communal, celebratory and creative engagement with death and dying. Her outdoor ceremonies involve music, stories and sharing, opportunities to interact with the deceased or paint their final resting place. Teaming up with a cremation expert and palliative care worker and with the approval of local councils, they have created the Lismore Bushland Cemetery, where koala’s move among the scattered plots.

Virago’s pronouncements will strike a chord with anyone who has attended a ‘‘bad funeral’’, as will her thoughts that ‘‘nobody ever regrets speaking at a funeral, everybody regrets not’’ . But there’s something missing from this tale, no-one outside her inner circle questions or comments on what she has set up. Which raises more questions than answers: Has there been any opposition? A little more rigour would have made a more compelling watch. –