Log in
The Last Happy Day

The Last Happy Day

2009 · 38 min · ★ 5.0 · Documentary

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 U.S. 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 world-wide fame. Sachs’ essay film uses personal letters, abstracted war imagery, home movies, interviews and a children’s performance to create an intimate meditation on the destructive power of war.

Directed by Lynne Sachs · Written by Lynne Sachs

Your Rating

Where to Watch

Streaming

FandorOVIDFandor Amazon Channel

Rent or Buy

Amazon Video

Cast

Make it a double feature

52m together

The Last Happy Day

A Month of Single Frames

Both from Lynne Sachs.

More from Lynne SachsSee all →

A Month of Single FramesA Month of Single Frames · 2019
A Month of Single Frames
★ 6.72019
MovieDocumentary
In 1998, filmmaker Barbara Hammer had a one-month artist residency in the C Scape Duneshack which is run by the Provincetown Community Compact in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The shack had no running water or electricity. While there, she shot 16mm film with her Beaulieu camera, recorded sounds with her cassette recorder and kept a journal. In 2018, Barbara began her own process of dying by revisiting her personal archive. She gave all of her Duneshack images, sounds and writing to filmmaker Lynne Sachs and invited her to make a film with the material.
Film About a Father WhoFilm About a Father Who · 2020
Film About a Father Who
★ 6.02020
MovieDocumentary
From 1984 to 2019, Lynne Sachs shot film of her father, a bon vivant and pioneering businessman. This documentary is her attempt to understand the web that connects a child to her parent and a sister to her siblings. As the startling facts mount, Sachs as a daughter discovers more about her father than she had ever hoped to reveal.
Which Way Is East: Notebooks from VietnamWhich Way Is East: Notebooks from Vietnam · 1994
Which Way Is East: Notebooks from Vietnam
★ 6.01994
MovieDocumentary
In this illuminating study of cultural contrasts, American filmmaker Lynne Sachs and her sister, Dana, travel north from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, recording conversations with Vietnamese strangers and friends. The sisters' expansive travel diary covers tourism, insights into city life, pervasive culture clashes and a bracing historic inquiry. What begins as a picaresque road trip soon blossoms into a richer social and political discourse.
Drawn and QuarteredDrawn and Quartered · 1986
Drawn and Quartered
★ 6.01986
MovieDocumentary
Optically printed images of a man and a woman fragmented by a film frame that is divided into four distinct sections. An experiment in form/content relationships that are peculiar to the medium.
Carolee, Barbara and GunvorCarolee, Barbara and Gunvor · 2018
Carolee, Barbara and Gunvor
★ 5.62018
MovieDocumentary
From 2015 to 2017, Lynne Sachs visited with Carolee Schneemann, Barbara Hammer and Gunvor Nelson, three multi-faceted artists who have embraced the moving image throughout their lives.
Your Day Is My NightYour Day Is My Night · 2014
Your Day Is My Night
★ 5.52014
MovieDocumentaryHistory
Immigrant residents of a “shift-bed” apartment in the heart of New York City’s Chinatown share their stories of personal and political upheaval. As the bed transforms into a stage, the film reveals the collective history of the Chinese in the United States through conversations, autobiographical monologues, and theatrical movement pieces. Shot in the kitchens, bedrooms, wedding halls, cafés, and mahjong parlors of Chinatown, this provocative hybrid documentary addresses issues of privacy, intimacy, and urban life.
ContractionsContractions · 2024
Contractions
2024
MovieDocumentary
Intimate confessions, paired with experimental choreography outside a woman’s clinic in Memphis, offer a glimpse into post Roe v. Wade America.
SwerveSwerve · 2022
Swerve
2022
Movie
A food market and playground in Queens, NY becomes the site for this film inspired by Paolo Javier’s Original Brown Boy poems. The film itself transforms into an ars poetica/cinematica—a meditation on writing and making images in the liminal space between a global pandemic and what might come next—as five New York City performers speak in verse while wandering through food stalls in search of a new sensation.
Every Contact Leaves a TraceEvery Contact Leaves a Trace · 2025
Every Contact Leaves a Trace
2025
MovieDocumentary
Since 1990, filmmaker Lynne Sachs has collected 600 business cards—from a hairdresser, a therapist, a textile artist. Together they form an archive of encounters.
The Washing SocietyThe Washing Society · 2018
The Washing Society
2018
MovieDocumentaryDrama
When you drop off a bag of dirty laundry, who's doing the washing and folding? The Washing Society brings us into New York City laundromats and the experiences of the people who work there by observing these disappearing neighborhood spaces and the continual, intimate labor that is performed there.
The House of Science: A Museum of False FactsThe House of Science: A Museum of False Facts · 1991
The House of Science: A Museum of False Facts
1991
MovieDocumentary
The winner of numerous festival prizes, this early work by Lynne Sachs is a provocative film essay on women's perspectives on their bodies in a "man's world." It touches on everything from the female form's depiction in Renaissance art to the school of 19th century "scientific" thought equating "abnormal" physiognomy with criminality. This adventurous collage also features the filmmaker's own diaristic recollections (notably of being fitted for a diaphragm by a cold, intimidating doctor), poetical staged sequences, other women's audio testimonies, an old classroom instructional reel about menstruation, prose by Gertrude Stein and feminine "ideals" like the undulating young woman performing in fish-tail costumes at Florida's kitschy Weeki-Wachee Springs "Underwater Mermaid Theater." - Dennis Harvey
¡Despertar!¡Despertar! · 2018
¡Despertar!
2018
MovieDocumentary
On June 28, 2018, laundry workers from El Barrio in New York City marched to the laundromat where they work. Their community and the Laundry Workers Center were there to support them.
Maya at 24Maya at 24 · 2021
Maya at 24
2021
MovieDocumentary
Lynne Sachs films her daughter Maya in 16mm black and white film, at ages 6, 16 and 24. At each iteration, Maya runs around her mother, in a circle – clockwise – as if propelling herself in the same direction as time, forward. Conscious of the strange simultaneous temporal landscape that only film can convey, we watch Maya in motion at each distinct age.
States of UnBelongingStates of UnBelonging · 2005
States of UnBelonging
2005
Movie
The core of this haunting meditation on war, land, the Bible, and filmmaking is a portrait of Revital Ohayon, an Israeli filmmaker and mother killed near the West Bank. Director Lynne Sachs creates a film on the violence of the Middle East by exchanging letters with an Israeli friend. Together, they reveal Revital's story through her films, news reports, and interviews, culminating in heartbreaking footage of children discussing the violence they've witnessed. Without taking sides or casting blame, the film becomes a cine-essay on fear and filmmaking, tragedy and transformation, violence and the land of Israel/Palestine.
A Year in Notes and NumbersA Year in Notes and Numbers · 2017
A Year in Notes and Numbers
2017
MovieDocumentaryAnimation
A year’s worth of to-do lists confronts the unavoidable numbers that are part and parcel of an annual visit to the doctor. The quotidian and the corporeal mingle and mix. Family commitments, errands and artistic effusions trade places with the daunting reality of sugar, cholesterol, and bone.
A Morning with Jack WatersA Morning with Jack Waters · 2018
A Morning with Jack Waters
2018
MovieDocumentary
In conversation with filmmaker Lynne Sachs, multi-disciplinary artist Jack Waters discusses his career and experiences as a part of the downtown New York City art scene from the early 80s to the present. Filmed in Jack’s home on the Lower East Side on February 15th, 2018.

More Like This

Couldn't load this row right now.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter