Chariots of Fire (1981)

Chariots of Fire is a  British historical film  and true story of two athelets in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God, and Harold Abrahams, a British non-religious Jew who runs to overcome prejudice deals. Harold is driven to prove himself by personal success and individual performance. This film deals directly with such issues as athletic competition, the nature of winning and losing, and the central place of ethics in sports. It touches sensitively and powerfully on the longing for perfection, the search for meaning, and the struggle for acceptance.

Both Harold and Abraham seem unbeatable in the running race. They were urged to examine themselves, assess their true potential, seek to discover where their true chance of greatness lies. However, Harold’s fragile self-esteem depends absolutely upon his winning, whereas Eric runs because “God made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.” There is a scene when Eric’s sister, Jennie bashed and accused Eric of no longer caring about God, Eric tells her that he feels divinely inspired when running, and that not to run would be to dishonour God: “I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure. To win is to honour Him.”

Apparently we can notice that the film exhibits an insightful contrast between the two runners. Harold figures that victory does not provide long-lasting fulfillment because, ultimately, there is nothing beyond himself that he feels he can depend upon. Eric on the other hand, has a God-driven purpose and a relationship with His Lord that supplies an unbreakable confidence. He lives a life of godly joy that does not relies on winning or losing, instead it is a joy that is the fruit of a Godly life.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie, especially Eric’s determination not to compromise his beliefs and to always do his things with the glorious name of God. Hence, this movie can somewhat be a good “ice breaker” to get the focus onto the things of God. Chariots of Fire” is one of the movies that really makes one appreciates the value of standing for what he or she believes in. In plain sight, Eric’s stand for his Christian faith plus his love for other opponents is also rarely seen today, even by athletes who claim to be Christian. Therefore, it is a good value to be learnt from this movie – not to treat everyone as the enemy but treat them as sibling with God’s belief, everyone is like a family and it should not be drawn a boundary in between one another. Also, the review of this movie will eventually raise about values in life which will help its audience, especially the children to realize that winning ISN’T everything after all.

Departures (2008)

Daigo is ashamed of his new job as an undertaker and keeps it a secret from Mika, afraid that she might overreact to it. When one of his childhood’s friend, finds out what he does, he shuns him for the blemish carried from undertakers. Eventually, Mika watches the training tape and urges Daigo to leave the undertaking job because she finds him to be unclean. She wants him to get a normal job instead, but he talked back to her that “Death is normal.”

Even though the film does not explain the “unclean” issue, Japanese audiences know well about it. The initial reluctance that Daigo had previously was not about how sickening the undertaker’s job is, but dealing with dead bodies and dead animals was regarded as unclean in Japan, as much as it was in India. Therefore, those who prepare bodies are still widely discriminated against, and that discrimination can extend to families. So as from what the films depicted, his wife reacts with repulsion to the job he has taken, or his neighbors shun him, it’s engaging in an act of social criticism. Cleaning the bodies of dead people is apparently looked down upon in Japanese society.

Other than that, we can also sense that Daigo has never recovered from his childhood abandonment. Daigo’s mother keep his father’s records after he walked out of the family when Daigo was only six years old. We have seen that this abandonment has deeply troubled him in adulthood. Hence, just from watching Daigo listen to the classical records which his father left when he abandoned the family, we understand why he pursued a  career as a cellist when it is clear that he did not have the talent to make it a success. Nevertheless, he is an artist now who makes the dead beautiful again. He prepares the deceased for a peaceful departure. He eventually comes to see how his work helps the family and friends of the deceased access and express their grief. He brings dignity and beauty to these intimate moments. However, he cannot share that  experience with the woman he loves due to the discrimination about undertaking jobs happens in Japanese’s society.

Indeed, the film deserves to win over Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 2008. The film’s director managed to create filmic masterpiece which is both humorous and depressing as well as all the emotions in between. There was one moment in the film that conveys the deep symbolic value of ritual –> [When it is time for him to reach out to Mika, he recalls that his father once gave him a “stone letter.” Presenting his wife with a small rock, he explains: “Long ago, before writing, you’d send someone a stone that suited how you were feeling. From its weight and touch, they’d know how you felt. From a smooth stone, they might get that you were happy; or from a rough one that you were worried about them.”]

All the actors are so adept, especially Daigo in communicating difficult emotions just with their faces and in bringing to life the gentle humor that enlighten this very poignant movie about death and letting-go.

Schindler’s List (1993)

Speaking of the movie, I would like to talk more on the main character – Oskar Schindler.

The film tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of approximately six thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. Nonetheless, Schindler, initially played with his individualistic characteristic. He concerned only with himself and the success of his moneymaking scheme He then underwent a change that prompts him to spend his fortune to save the lives of those he once exploited. Provided in the movie, his motive is never completely clear—and indeed, the real Schindler never revealed his motivations. However, the film suggested that at least one of his incentives was obvious which portrayed that Schindler simply could not sit by and watch people he knew be sent to death. His transformation from an indifferent man to compassionate one takes place gradually over a number of scenes. His respect for his Jewish accountant, Itzhak Stern, probably has a great deal to do with his transformation, as does his witnessing of the Kraków ghetto evacuation, when he sees the little girl in the red coat. Nevertheless, Schindler’s motivations may also be less altruistic – it is possible that his own ego and narcissism led him to be a savior. He initially reacts angrily to the idea that his factory is a haven when he got to know it from a Polish-Jewish refuge, but soon he perhaps became enticed of the idea of being a hero. The needs of his ego may, in fewer capacity, have gone beyond his material needs. The film does not produce such a harsh stance, but Schindler’s unmannered behavior makes this speculation plausible. Regardless of whatever the results of an analysis of Schindler’s motivations, the good effects of his choices are undeniable – he saved approximately six thousand lives. It was apparently seen that the Polish-Jewish refugees paid such high respect to him in the nearly end of the movie after how he helped them to survive through the Holocaust led by Adolf Hilter and the Nazi Party throughout German-occupied territory.

Good Will Hunting (1997)

First of all, I would like to adopt the Erikson’s psychosocial theory of personal development (Neu-Freudian theory) as a direction of explaining Will’s personality in the movie. The particular theory is one of the best-known theories of personality in psychology. Erikson believed that personality develops in a series of stages. It was maintained in Erikson’s psychosocial theory of personal development that Will’s defensive and avoidant personality was developed due to the continuing abuse by his foster homes when he was young. The third psychosocial stage – Initiative versus Guilty, rationalized that children tend to assert themselves in ways which are considered socially acceptable, and learn to take initiative in their dealings with both people and tasks. According to the theory, successful completion of each stage results in a healthy personality and successful interactions with others. On the other hand, it was claimed that failure to pull yourselves through a stage can lead to impaired ability for completing the following stages, and so make you a more unhealthy personality and sense of self. Let us take an example of the movie of “Good Will Hunting”, Will grew up with violence both inside and outside the home. He never received any sympathy or understanding for the abuse which he went through in his foster homes, thus making him accept the abuse and his role as abuser in both ways – physical and psychological ways, whenever he had the chance. The physical abuse was when he beaten up his kindergarten friend.  Speaking of the examples of his psychological abuse, one of them was when he continually insulted the marriage between Shawn and his deceased wife. The other one was when he used his prodigy to mentally attack the young graduate student and eventually have Skyla impressed about him. After Skyla gave him her phone number, he flaunts the fact to the young graduate student. Therefore, this theory is used in the present paper to illustrate why Will acted out such attitudes and behaviors in the movie.

The second theory that I put in the paper is Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. It explains about how the id (pleasure principle), ego (reality principle) and superego (moral principle) structure one’s personality by initiating the unconscious, sexual and aggressive drives. If these three elements are off-balance, one will not be able to maintain a healthy state of consciousness. Hence, one will be very much delicate to any stressors and anxiety by distorting reality. This then brings about intimidating unconscious thoughts and material to enter the consciousness and eventually results in possessing one of the defense mechanisms. Likewise, it works as a way of illustrating Will’s defensive behaviors and irrational thinking. Will was avoidant, defensive and in denial as he experienced the anxiety of being abused during his childhood. By constantly attacking Shawn with the questions about his deceased wife, his avoidant behavior was spotted when he tried to avoid the questions which may probably disclose the true pain and fear which he was feeling inside. His mental attack to Shawn shows how apathetic he was with the people around him and his inability to see things from other people’s point of view. He continuously attacked Shawn about his deceased wife although he was aware that it is a painful subject for Shawn and the scene winded up with Shawn kicking him out for bringing up the topic over again. Other than that, he intentionally tried to hurt his best friend, Chuckie without a reason or an excuse, so was there no excuse for the abuse that was done to him which he used to believe that the abuse is socially acceptable; he then protected himself from the childhood pains by performing violence and anger whenever he has the chance. In such manner, it explains the defense mechanism. Technically speaking, Will is unconscious of how to deal with people and feel anything. Instead, he knows how to aggressively abuse from playing his physical and psychological games. Apparently, his painful childhood experience had potentially led him into being the mental functioning of young adult.

The third theory that will be adopted to analyze Will is the five-factor model of personality (Big Five: OCEAN) which it represents the core description of human personality. Based on what is visible in the film, I believe that Will scores lower in openness and agreeableness but higher in neuroticism. To elaborate further why he scores lower in term of openness, it is because he never meant to change his life by using his gifted talent although being verified by the Mathematic professor.  Lower in agreeableness, he can barely hit it off with the other people as he is only comfortable to stay within his comfort zone. He gets pissed off when people tend to understand more about him. He never opens up to anyone even to his best friends; for an instance, there is a scene where he pushed Chuckie away when Chuckie motivated him to use his genius to get a better life. On the other hand, higher in neuroticism, he is not stable of his own emotion as he could be a sweet tough guy or rude tough guy, introvert or extravert, and conscientious or unconscientious in different scenes. He switches into either one depending on his mood. He is fear of rejection and thus he always shuts up himself especially in the intimate relationship, which this inhibits his ability to build relationships with others as well as function normally in everyday life. It was led to believe that he was diagnosed as posttraumatic stress disorder and inferiority complexes. Brown clarified that these signs are normally associated with early child abuse, and people who typically possess these symptoms may withdraw themselves from the social setting and express themselves with violence and anger. These signs exactly talk about what we have perceived in Will from “Good Will Hunting”. There is a scene in the movie which Will exposed a scar of stab wound inflicted by his foster parents. Indeed, such a traumatic abuse at any age, at a young age in particular, would be adequate to lead a child into developing posttraumatic stress disorder and an inferiority complex.

Last but not least, what determines Will’s personality – nature or nurture? I believe that nurture (environment) determines Will’s personality after all. In the film, it never talked about his true parents; instead the portrayal of his childhood events resolves the riddle why he carried such personality. Moreover, Freud emphasized that heredity is not enough to structure the personality because developing personality requires environmental effects and takes time to travel along from infancy to elder years with one’s self-determination. What is more, Freud also said that our body size may be greatly determined by biological information inherited by our parents, but our learning experience during childhood is what counts in shaping our personality. Besides, Will’s giftedness is also possible to shape his personality, especially his inferiority complexes. Nonetheless, cause of giftedness is still controversial – nature or nurture? It is the mixture of both, so said Perles (2010). It is true to a certain extent that most of the gifted children and adults suffer from inferiority complexes, claimed by Silverman (n.d.). To explain further, they tend to find themselves lacking in every aspects although they know about it, and they also rarely compare themselves with their classmates. Therefore, giftedness leads one into developing inferiority complexes which is another answer to explain why Will is so much inferior in all the aspects.

When a man loves a woman (1994)

Indeed, an individual’s alcoholism can adversely affect an entire family. Often an alcoholic’s family suffers from emotional, physical, and psychological abandonment. Such is the case in the film, When A Man Loves A Woman, which realistically represents alcoholism and its effects on the family unit. Alice Green (the alcoholic protagonist), experiences the classic alcoholic’s stages that include cause, effects, recognition, and rehabilitation. Alice accurately portrays the behaviors characteristic of the female alcohol abuser.

Talking about the cause to Alice’s alcoholic addiction, it is incredible and confusing that Alice’s non-depressed personality characterizes alcoholics who have neither undergone repeated treatments nor experienced heightened marital problems. Studied shows that people with depressive personality will more likely engage in uncontrollable consumption of alcohol, as compared to those with non-depressed personality. Based on the film, we could see that Alice is not in a line with any depressed personality. Therefore, there is such a dispute to have such plot saying that she could not control her consumption of alcohol. This kind of behavior is apart of abnormal personality but it did not show in the film that Alice is obsessed with any stressors which lead to depression. 

Moreover, the film covers all four phases of alcoholism those are cause, effects, recognition and 
rehabilitation, yet it does not precisely explain the causes for Alice’s alcohol addiction. Perhaps Alice’s father’s previous alcohol problem increased the likelihood of her experimentation with the drug, yet she never cites this as a cause of her addiction; or is she drinking to stress caused by her job as well as the responsibility of often raising her family alone, due to her husband’s frequent business trips? So far, it is still an unanswered question. Moreover, with the exception of Michael’s irregular schedule, the couple shows no signs of marital problems. Thus, marital problems may not seem to be the cause of Alice becoming the addictive alcoholic.

Speaking of the effect, alcoholic parents also tend to nurture and attend less to their child’s needs. Alice exhibits the ‘less nurturing and attentive’ side when she returns home one afternoon obviously intoxicated. Seeing Jess in the living room, Alice commands her to finish her homework, ignoring her daughter’s request to admire a picture she draws on the computer. After making this demand, Alice stumbles upstairs to find some aspirin, walks into her closet, retrieves a liquor bottle, and washes down the medicine. All the while, Jess watches her mother’s irresponsible actions, concerned that she is ill. The second time Jess questions her mother’s health, Alice responds by smacking her daughter across the face. Following this abusive act, Alice attempts to take a shower, but faints and falls to the floor, along with the glass shower door that shattered on impact. Jess runs in, only to see her mother lying among the debris and assumes she is dead. This physically abusive behavior which Alice brought it out on Jess apparently proves the typical of alcoholic parents and is increasingly common during intoxication. This is where the crack of the parent-child relationship sets in between.

In the film, it shows the greatest love of Michael towards his alcoholic wife, Alice. Despite she is a severe alcoholic, he remains loving and supportive of his wife, and only shows emotion of fear and and anxiety when Alice’s relapse began. This untiring support acts as a positive drive for Alice’s recovery and accounts for the couple’s lack of marital problems.

Moving on to recognition, Alice is in denial that her excessive drinking contributes problems to her family before she deeply recognizes it. After all the scary episodes caused by her drunkedness happened around her, she eventually comes around to the sense that her alcohol obsession nearly ruined herself and her family, and agrees to seek for professional help.

Following her release from the hospital, Alice enters a rehabilitation center where she undergoes a detoxification period. During this time she experiences withdrawal symptoms including sweating, shaking, uncontrollable crying, and irritability. Congruent with the Windsor Clinic
Alcohol Withdrawal Assessment Scale for uncomplicated withdrawals (1995), Alice’s symptoms
accurately portray a detox period for someone with an equally severe alcohol addiction. When a Man Loves a Woman’s realistic portrayal of this stage in overcoming alcoholism does not romanticize the issue like what the movie title is, instead it mirrors empirical evidence.

Shine (1996)

The movie with the title “Shine” talks about what the talented pianist had gone through along his life development when he was so much pushed by his father and teacher for the piano, and eventually he broke down. I learnt that David has manic mode of speech being difficult to understand, at the beginning of the movie when he barely stuttered out each words that he was trying to express. Without the subtitles provided in the movie, I would hardly understand of his mumbles.

At first, I really thought that he was diagnosed with speech disorder. However, he was the child prodigy for piano-playing since he was taught to play by his father when he was five. He won several local competitions. His tyrannical father was so stern with him. His father is a man obsessed with winning who has no tolerance for failure or disobedience. Therefore, the father always pushed David on edge before every competition. The father also performs a few of odd, unexplainably despotic behaviors. It rings a bell when there is a scene which David was sitting in the bathtub shivering, his father came in and whipped him unreasonably after seeing the situation. The second scene is when David was fourteen, he was offered an opportunity to go the United States to study music. However, his father denied him permission on the grounds that he was not ready for independences and he thought that David’s leaving would destroy the family. David tried to insist and hence he got beaten aggressively by his father. I presume this leads to his early indications of mental illness.

David’s talent grows until he is offered a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London. David’s father again forbids him to go but with the encouragement of Katherine, David leaves. In London, David enters a Concerto competition, choosing to play Rachmaninoff’s difficult 3rd Concerto, a piece he had attempted to learn as a young child to make his father proud. As David practises, he increasingly becomes manic in his behavior. Although David wins the competition, he suffers a mental breakdown and is admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where he receives electric shock therapy.

Since then, he began showing more definite manifestations of schizophrenia disorders. He begins to have flat, expressionless gaze, odd or irrational statements, forgetful and unable to concentrate, extreme reaction to criticism, and engage in strange use of words or way of speaking. There is a period when a volunteer at the mental institution takes him at home, and soon she discovers that he is difficult to control, unintentionally destructive, and needs more care than she can offer. She leaves him at the hotel from earlier in the film. David has difficulty adjusting to life outside the institution, and often wanders away from the hotel. As we can see David’s few existing behaviors related to schizophrenia in the film, Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects the way a person acts, thinks, and sees the world. People with schizophrenia have an altered perception of reality, often a significant loss of contact with reality. It also tends to be more severe in men than in women.

Later in years, David recovers to the point where he is able to return to Australia. He is so keen to be accepted by his father but his father decided to break up the kinship with him. He is very upset of this matter. He really hopes to reconcile with his father after all this happened. Soon after, he gets to know Gillian and asks her to marry him. He has a family unit ever since, and with his beloved’s wife support, he soon gets recovered much better off. There is a scene where David first performs in the concert after so long due to his chronic schizophrenia. After he incredibly played the last music note of the song, the applauses and cheers for joy are all around. He can’t believe that he finished the song; he is very touched and delighted. I can really feel my presence in the film. I believe that with support, medication, and therapy, many people with schizophrenia are able to function independently and live satisfying lives, just like how David got over theronic schizophrenia in his worse part of life.

Running On Empty (1988)

I just watched a film titled “Running on Empty” in the last week’s lecture. Once I saw the title, it constantly got to my mind that it was going to talk about some escape, I supposed. The title can bring up few definitions, either it means lacking of energy or enthusiasm, or literally means the car is running with almost no fuel. With either definition,  it could be linked to the movie’s plot.

The story revolves around the parents Annie and Arthur Pope who were responsible for the anti-war protest bombing of a napalm laboratory with the incident accidentally blinded and paralyzed a janitor, that was initially why they have been on the run ever since. As the film begins, the family are again relocating and assuming new identities. Danny, the eldest son in the family had been on the run with his parents since he was two hence leading him being an introvert guy and would never open up to someone else. He dared not to tell everyone about his life and family because he knew that he would eventually make up a lie in order to cover up the only truth. In the new environment again, he went to his new school, and he signed up for music class as one of his electives. Danny’s piano-playing talent caught the attention of his music teacher at high school, and the teacher invited him to visit his piano in the house, anytime; there was where Danny met Lorna, the teacher’s teenage daughter. When the two teenagers met, at the age of being rebellious, they were rude to one another and didn’t mean to give in. Still, there were the chemistry playing around in between them apparently. Lorna’s father pushed Danny to audition for Julliard for his incredible talent, and he made it. In the meantime, he fell for Lorna. His affection towards Lorna was over-spilling after his mom told him in his face that she actually likes Lorna. He finally mustered up the courage and opened up what he felt about her during the time sending her home.  At first it was going smooth but Danny had a second thought hence he held it back; Lorna felt it and she was profoundly hurted. He was so much struggling inside, he loves Lorna but he learnt that his family secret would eventually cause so much pain to Lorna due to separation after intimacy. So, the dilemma that he was having at the moment are either he opened up to Lorna or he gave up on Lorna. He was falling so deeply into the dilemma. Incredibly, love is the greatest element in life hence it gives Danny the greatest power. Danny decided to reveal his family secret to Lorna, and Lorna finally came to the truth. They were drenched in love. Meanwhile, the secret was nearly floating on the surface, and Annie,  the mother also found out about Danny’s audition, and began to come to terms with the fact that she must let her son go and find his ‘own’ way. This does not sit well with Arthur, the father, even as Annie risked their safety to contact her estranged father and arranged a home and life for Danny if they should decide to leave him behind. The father, Arthur planned another escape to a new town due to the revelation of the family secret. Danny tried to talk to his father that he wanted to stay remain in the place, but he was harshly rejected by his father.

Separation of family is one of the elements that always exist in the movie. Indeed, almost everyone can’t resist with being separated from the loved ones. In the movie, because of the family secret, the whole family had to deal with the separation from their loved ones. Danny was so keen to see his grandmother. He never met her once as his whole family was so obsessed with the running stuffs. He then disguised himself sending the pizza to his grandma’s house just to see her for once in his life. He tried to hold back his tears when he managed to see the grandma, he wanted to call her but the secret held him back. Besides, Danny also couldn’t bear to leave Lorna after being firmly rejected by his father about his plan staying remain in the place. The mother, Annie was separated from her parents, and in the movie, it was shown that Annie missed her parents a lot. It could be seen while Annie was having an emotional talk with his estranged father. The father, Arthur learnt that his mother passed away for keeping the secret in bury, the guilt and remorse had consumed him ever since. Therefore, he thought that there is nothing better than staying together with own family. Hence, he would insist not to let his son go and find his own way; he was afraid that the history would repeat again due to separation.

In the end, Arthur however realized that he was becoming the very type of authoritarian that he once rebelled against, and that he had no right to limit his son’s freedoms. The family left Danny behind and headed off for their next identity in a new town.

Love is very subjective, very abstract. It depends on how one expresses it. “One can sacrifice everything for love”. Is it true? Speaking of this, does it mean that Danny doesn’t love Lorna as much because he didn’t stand still for his choice and chose to leave Lorna? Does it mean Arthur doesn’t love his son because he limits his freedom of making choices in order not to be consumed by the guilt and remorse again? I personally think there is no true or false in the above questions. Everyone has their own definition of love. It depends on how they live with it. For me, I believe that there are different viewpoints on the power of love: idealistic & realistic. People with idealistic love will tend to believe that “with love, nothing is impossible”, whereas people with realistic love will more likely believe that “love can’t solve everything”. I was sort of greedy at times, thinking if I could have both – soaring on the wings of love while still keeping our feet on the ground, but I know it’s gonna be a rough patch. Ideality is far apart from reality.

 

 

 

 

Awakenings

I would like to talk about the two impressive characters (Dr. Sayer & Leonard) here based on the movie – Awakenings. Dr. Malcolm Sayer  is a dedicated and caring physician at a local hospital in the New York City, The Bronx.  Before that, Dr. Macolm Sayer once thought that he would not make himself through the employment interview as one of the doctor in the catatonic medical center. Once he was qualified, he found his job tedious and was not so passionate about his job. He treated the catatonic patients like robotic machines. However, Sayer discovered certain stimuli would reach beyond the patients’ respective catatonic states; actions such as catching a ball thrown at them, hearing familiar music, and experiencing human touch all have unique effects on particular patients and offer a glimpse into their worlds. On the contrary, Leonard Lowe, one of the patients proved elusive in this regard, but Sayer soon discovers that Leonard was able to communicate with him by using a Ouija board.

After attending a lecture at a conference on the subject of the L-Dopa drug and its success with patients suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, Sayer believed the drug may offer a breakthrough for his own group of patients. A trial run with Leonard Lowe yields astounding results as Leonard completely “awakens” from his catatonic state; this success inspired Sayer to ask for funding from donors so that all the catatonic patients can receive the L-Dopa medication and experience “awakenings” back to reality. Although he did not suceed, he never gives up. That is the impressive spirit of Dr. Sayer always posseses in the movie. However, Dr. Sayer is terribly dumb in feelings, especially with the affection of the nurse towards him, he has never once noticed about it. Leonard was the first to tell Dr. Sayer instead about how the nurse being affectionate and supportive towards him.

Meanwhile, Leonard is adjusting to his new life. After the first met with Paula, the daughter of another hospital patient, he became romantically interested in her, and began spending time with her when she comes to the hospital to visit her father. There is where Leonard also started to stand up for desiring the freedom to come and go as he pleases and stirs up a bit of a revolt in the process of arguing his case repeatedly to Sayer and the hospital administration. While Leonard was agitated battling adminstrators and staff about his perceived confinement, I was awaken by Leonard saying that ” When I go out….., I wanna do all those things which people take for granted”. I realize the true meaning of the word, we never are content in what we are having right now; we always reckon that we deserve to have what we are having so far, and we never appreciate a single thing, even the simplest smallest thing in the world. At this point, Leonard knew it well instead.

While Sayer and the hospital staff continue to delight in the success of L-Dopa with this group of patients, they soon find that it is a temporary measure once Sayer noticed that a number of facial and body tics were starting to manifest with Leonard had difficulty controlling them. As the first to be “awaken”, Leonard was also the first to demonstrate the limited duration of this period of “awakening”. Leonard’s tics grew more and more prominent and he started to shuffle more as he walked, and all of the patients were forced to witness what would eventually happen to them. He soon began to suffer full body spasms and could hardly move. Leonard, however, put up well with the pain, and asked Sayer to film him, in hopes that he would some day contribute to research that may eventually help others. Leonard acknowledged sadly what was happening to him and has a last lunch with Paula where he told her that he could not see her anymore. When he was about to leave, Paula danced with him, and for this short period of time his spasms disappeared. I wasn’t certain if this happened for miracle by God or it’s just the intention/exaggeration of both script writer and director to portray the good ending between the two in the movie. I personally believe that a patient with so much terrible physical spasms would be impossible for them to get rid of the spasm in a short while. A penny for your thought. Leonard soon returned to his catatonic state soon after. The other patients’ fears were similarly realized as each would eventually return to catatonia no matter how much their L-Dopa dosages were increased.

Sayer tells a group of grant donors to the hospital that although the “awakening” did not last, another kind — “one of learning to appreciate and live life”  took place. Likewise, as what I realize, most of the people nowadays take things for granted, and hence they complain and grumble most of the times. Therefore, I learn from Sayer’s saying which we should learn to appreciate and live our life to the fullest. For example, he himself, who has always been lonely, decided to go on a date with the nurse. The nurses now treat the catatonic patients once again with more respect and care, and Paula was shown visiting Leonard. The film ends with Sayer standing over Leonard behind a Ouija board, with his hands on Leonard’s hands which man the planchette. “Let’s begin,” Sayer says.