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The Sea Inside review
:. Director: Alejandro Amenábar
:. Starring: Javier Bardem, Belén Rueda
:. Running Time: 2:05
:. Year: 2004
:. Country: Spain
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Issue movies are tough. The question is how to make a cinematic comment about an important social issue like euthanasia, without it being a banal argument one way or another? Its too easy to get carried away by the passion of our beliefs, that filmmakers forget that a movie is not a legal argument, that the cinema is not a soap-box. But even then, its still hard. How do you show a paraplegic on screen, how do you touch the audience's pathos, without stooping to manipulation, to gratuitously pulling heartstrings?
Alejandro Amenabar's new movie takes on the real life story of a Spanish quadriplegic (Javier Bardem) who wants his life to end without endangering any of those who surround him. Twenty-eight years before, the formerly handsome and athletic Ramon broke his neck in a diving accident. He continues to live while at the same time hoping everyday to return to non-existence of pre-birth. To not have to be reminded day in day-out of all the things he cannot do. Like run. Or swim. Or make love.
It is 28 years that Ramon has been surrounded by his family, who have given up a regular life to care for him. His brother refuses him the permission to die under his house, from emotion an duty. His father, in despair, says nothing. His sister-in-law backs everything he wishes for, despite the fact that she does not want him to die. Julia (Belén Rueda), his lawyer (whom we later learn is afflicted with a degenerative disease) falls in love with him, despite his paralysis, or maybe even because of it. Rosa, who is inspired to live by this man fighting for his right to die, comes to visit, and also falls in love with him. Through all of these people that surround Ramon, as well as through his poetry and dreams and emotions, the film explores not happens when a person decides to die. Although the movie discusses euthanasia, what saves it from falling into the cotton candy swamps of melodrama is that it manages to stay a character movie. More than about death or dying, it is about people, and what people do and feel and say when they are confronted with the prospect of death or dying. It is not as much about who is right and who is wrong about living or dying with a severe handicap, as it is about how this particular group of people dealt with.
Unfortunately however, Amenabar too often relies on cinematographic clichés to illustrate his characters. The movie is replete with unnecessary close ups, and especially in the first couple of scenes, the insipidness of the cinematography (i.e. to illustrate the difficulty of the paralysis, when the beautiful Julia arrives to speak with Ramon, a slo-mo pan is used going from Ramon's face, down his body, arm to his hand, which lies helplessly two inches away from Julia's) is blatant. The music is equally saccharinated, yet, as the movie progresses, the we start to ignore the sappy Hollywood music, and see what we came there to see—namely the people. The characters draw us in and the we can forgive the film the sins of its form. Ramon's paralysis is perhaps most humanely illustrated when the film reveals the real reason that Ramon cannot continue to live, a reason that he runs away from denies, but is striking with its honesty—that he cannot make love. He, who was once an adventurous and handsome man, will no longer be able to experience the joys of the flesh to flesh experience with a woman, and ultimately, this hardens his resolve to seeking his own death.
Despite certain moments that flirt dangerously with melodrama, the actors manage to keep telling us a story that is moving, that is about individuals. There is no doubt that the movie is flawed, tries too hard to be uplifting, and the cinematography is often bland and constructed at times, yet its feeling of sincerity and its corazon manages to keep The Sea Inside above water.
Yaron Dahan
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