Interesting to see the great lengths people will go to keep their companion animal in their lives.
The bonds that form between humans and their companion animals, the dimensions of grief people experience when they lose an animal, and the lengths to which they'll go to preserve more than a memory...FUREVER.
FUREVER is a feature-length documentary that explores the dimensions of grief people experience over the loss of a companion animal. It examines the sociological evolution of companion animals in the U.S. today, particularly their position in a family unit, and how this evolution is affecting those in the veterinary profession and death care industry. With interviews from grieving animal guardians, veterinarians, psychologists, sociologists, religious scholars, neuroscientists, and the many professionals who preserve an animal's body for their devastated clientele, or re-purpose an animal's cremains in unique ways (taxidermy, cloning, mummification, freeze-drying, and many more), FUREVER confronts contemporary trends, perspectives, and relevant cultural assumptions regarding attachment, religion, ritual, grief, and death, and studies the bonds that form between humans and animals, both psychological and physiological.
Sixty-two percent of Americans have a companion animal, and they spent a total of $52.9 billion on their companions last year. Many judge animal guardians who choose to memorialize their deceased companions as unbalanced, yet religious or cultural rituals for deceased people often seem unusual to outsiders.
How "real" is grief for a dead companion animal and who decides what kind of grief is acceptable, or appropriate?
Rather than pathetic or morbid, these animal guardians embody America's muddled attitudes toward death and dying, touching on our collective fear of aging, and how that fear is shaped by the shifting influences of religion, technology, family, and money.
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