Last Breath

Director: Tony Matthews
Country: Australia
Runtime: 60’
Language: English
Year: 2010

John Spies was born partially blind in Holland, but at the age of four had an operation which successfully restored his sight. Coming from a life of darkness he discovered that the world around him consisted of unimaginable wonders, a world that consisted of a wide palette of colour and texture; a feast of light and life that both awed and mystified him. Unlike other boys his age John sought solitude. He would bring small animals to his modest home - frogs, lizards, even snakes, and draw them in the soft European light that filtered through the thick-paned windows.

John’s family migrated to Australia after WW2 and settled in Launceston, Tasmania. He loved wild animals since the moment he had first been able to see them. It was an enduring love that was to remain with him for the rest of his life. The film follows John Spies days before his death. He is one of Australia’s truly great wildlife artists; a gentle, introspective, solitary man whose only real concern in the world was to give affection to those he loved and to care for his beloved creatures of the forest. His life, like his art, was a riotous palette of colour where the paints sometimes spilled and combined to create intricate complexities.