Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things

I agree with and try to live in accordance with the central idea that this documentary is trying to get across - focus on the important things rather than on consumer objects. But this documentary was a disappointment - I didn't even get all the way through. It's light on content, repeating the same basic ideas over and over. And using the book tour as a central narrative was dull and made the documentary look like an advert for the book.

Instead, I would have loved to have seen other issues explored. How do different minimalists do it differently? Is minimalism just a way of having a nice low-stress life or do people use it as a basis for helping others? What are some practical ways of reducing costs? How do people blend it with other alternative ways of living? How have people lived minimally in history? Does it work better in a city or the countryside? etc.

I am in full and enthusiastic agreement with most of the ideas presented in this movie. That's why I found it so disappointing.

With the exception of Sam Harris, Juliet Schor and President Carter (clips from the bravest speech ever given by a U.S. President), the talking heads were cloyingly earnest and oh, so good!

And stop all the hugging...please!

I liked the message of the documentary. It argues that we don't need all the extra stuff that we are constantly collecting. This is obstructing us from things that really matter. You don't make space for that since consuming seems more fulfilling myopically and seems more urgent. There were examples of multititude of people speaking about apparels, home space, career related things which we just get hooked on to without rethinking if that is for us. The documentary didn't get very deep in the challenges of implementing it, or even the nuances and how several people have adopted it in their daily lives. There were traces of meditation helping, connecting with people, implementing this within a family or just your spouse. But it felt a little superficial. But overall I recommend it. The next time you are purchasing something, if this movie triggers a deliberation, then it has left a mark. It seems to have done for me.

Having spent the last two-and-a-half years living on a 25 foot long sailboat, I am in a position to say a word or two about minimalism. And it could be said that in the realm of living a minimalistic life people who live on boats have been doing it for a long long time, much longer than what these filmmakers propose.

What I appreciate about the film is that it does propose a great many good thoughts for conversation on how life can be more full with less stuff.

Unfortunately where this film fell quite flat for me was in that most of the interviews are with people who are well- to-do making six-digit incomes and deciding that they don't want a big house instead choosing to live a minimalistic life which is fine. But a great many people choose to live minimalistic lives that are not as wealthy, and are simply working-class folks.

And as some of the reviewers here have pointed out a film about minimalism should be perhaps much shorter and to the point, so here is mine on the advantages of a minimalistic lifestyle.

I am asked often what it is like for my life on my small sailboat and the answer is that I have found stuff creates anchors. Like the death with ten thousand small cuts these anchors are each and of themselves so tiny, so small, so insignificant, that one does not notice them but in totality they wind up creating a sort of quicksand trapping you in place, doing a thing so that you may hold on to these things.

And that a life where your identity is deeply embedded in the things around you that are yours is in fact an extremely hollow form of existence.

As it stands for the warmer half of the year when I arrive home from work if there is wind, 15 minutes later I'm out sailing with very few anchors trailing behind.

I'm glad someone is saying these things about minimalism, I'm just not so sure these guys did the best job of it.

Minimalism can be an eye-opening message for anyone who hasn't been exposed to it, but for most, it's too little too late. Documentaries like Food Inc and An Inconvenient Truth were ahead of their time, coming out before the zenith of the information age. But minimalism has pervaded through blogs, books, Youtube, college lectures and TED already, and making this documentary at this time was a very safe choice.

It has a little bit of everything, some dialogue from semi-famous bloggers (and Sam Harris), a few anecdotes, pictures, data, some shots of Americans being iphone-addicted slobs. It has a lot of good one liners but doesn't particularly go into any one thing in depth. I don't think I walked away from it knowing anything I didn't already know.

Every now and then, I do need a little reminder to cut back on my excess and focus on quality rather than quantity, and this movie does that. It's useful for that.But this joins a long line of works with the cliché message of "avoid consumerism, find fulfilment in your life and live in the woods maybe".