Learning Gravity (aka the Undertaking)

I'm not a big poetry fan and I had not heard of Thomas Lynch before watching this film. Like his father before him and many of his extended family, Thomas Lynch is an undertaker, director indeed of Lynch & Sons in Michigan, and he has used his experience in working with death to inform his writing as a poet. Those much better read than myself will also have been familiar with Lynch from his book "The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade" and this film is a mix of Lynch's poetry and he himself talking back over his life and experiences.

The film is a great selling device for the book because it is hard not to be taken in and engaged by it. Lynch leads the film with a wonderful familiarity that made me think I was listening to someone who saw the camera as a trusted friend – not as an intrusion or an observer and nothing more. His voice is soft and lovely and it fits his poetry really well. The works themselves are interesting and gentle; they don't offer great truths or revelations but they are well-observed and cleverly phrased. The memories of Lynch are also good value even if some of the home movie footage is a bit morbid; being from rural Northern Ireland, I did like the footage of his family in Ireland, with the innocent but politically incorrect dog (believe it or not called Sambo), the Triumph Acclaim they drive, the cottage that is at once warm and inviting but also broken down and old.

The film is well put together and the direction, look and feel of the film sits well with the words and Lynch's voice. Overall it is an engaging film, not awe-inspiring or supremely moving but it flows really well and did hold my attention and bring me into line with what it was doing. Off the back of this I suspect I will be looking to buy a copy of the poetry collection of The Undertaking.