AllMovie

A man struggling to come to terms with a disability takes an unusual journey in this documentary from filmmaker Scott Smith. Ryan Knighton is an author, humorist, magazine editor and poet who was born and raised in Canada, where he lives and teaches today. At the age of eighteen, Knighton was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disease affecting the eyes, and learned that slowly but surely he would lose his vision as poor night vision and a loss or peripheral sight gradually gave way to a complete failure of his eyes. While Knighton's condition hasn't slowed his progress as a writer or in academia, time forced him to acknowledge that he could only count on his sight for so long. With the passage of time taking on a new significance for him, Knighton decided to make a pilgrimage to Halberstadt, a town in East Germany, where a handful of artists and musicians have been taking part in a musical experiment. Avant-garde composer John Cage wrote a short piece in 1982 called "As Slow As Possible", which he declared was to be played (of course) as slow as possible. The artists in Halberstadt decided to stage a performance of the piece on pipe organ that would last 639 years (the estimated life span of the instrument), and Knighton hopes to witness something unusual before the last of his sight slips away -- one note shifting to another on the Cage organ. As Slow As Possible was an official selection at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival.