The Last Happy Day (2009)

THE LAST HAPPY DAY is an experimental documentary portrait of Sandor Alexander Lenard a Hungarian medical doctor and a distant cousin of filmmaker Lynne Sachs In 1938 Lenard a writer with a Jewish background fled the Nazis to a safe haven in Rome Shortly thereafter the US Army Graves Registration Service hired Lenard to reconstruct the bones small and large of dead American soldiers Eventually he found himself in remotest Brazil where he embarked on the translation of Winnie the Pooh into Latin an eccentric task that catapulted him to brief worldwide fame Sachs essay film uses personal letters abstracted war imagery home movies interviews and a childrens performance to create an intimate meditation on the destructive power of war