At 76, Swedish auteur Roy Andersson is about to complete his last film. With the end of his career in sight, the central thematic concerns of Roy's work - vulnerability, insecurity and mortality - spill over into his creative process.

In the summer of 1983, just days before the birth of his first son, writer and theologian John Hull went blind. In order to make sense of the upheaval in his life, he began keeping a diary on audiocassette. Upon their publication in 1990, Oliver...