Stunning film asks important questions about control of one's own life
Alejandro Amenabar's "The Sea Inside" is a Spanish film that offers proof to my theory that an overwhelmingly high number of Hollywood movies are like Trix are for kids. Ooo! look at all the colors and special effects! Even when a serious minded Hollywood film tries to tackle a controversial topic, there seems to be a compulsion to dance around the material.
Javier Bardem delivers a powerful performance as Ramon Sampredo, a quadriplegic fighting for the right to die, in Alejandro Amenabar's "The Sea Inside."
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, "The Sea Inside" is an interesting contrast between the American Best Picture winner "Million Dollar Baby" in that they both cover roughly the same thematic territory. "Baby" however, is forced to dress up its provocative question in the guise of a good old American boxing flick; it's ultimate ends hidden in a red herring storyline about a doggedly determined female boxer: a tough cookie, a fighter, a real go-getter plucky tiger. It's as if she has to prove how tough she is so that the audience might grant her permission when it is finally time, from her viewpoint, to throw in the towel.
"The Sea Inside," however, avoids Eastwood's long preamble and gets straight to the question: ultimately, who owns your life? Is it you? Is it God? Is it the government of whatever country or state you happen to live in? By what authority is this control assumed?
"The Sea Inside" tackles the question head on, without the melodramatic developments of Eastwood's film, and perhaps most importantly, allowing the person most affected most by the question to present his best case. "Million Dollar Baby" turns the question into a moral dilemma that Eastwood's character must solve; "The Sea Inside" keeps the decision squarely in the court of Ramon Sampedro, a quadriplegic man who has wrestled with the question for 28 years.
Utterly immobilized — except for limited head movement — for nearly three decades, Ramon Sampedro knows that he wants to die. He sees it not as an emotional decision, but a rational one.
Ramon feels that living as he does has gradually stripped him of his dignity. All the elements of other people's lives that he sees as imparting dignity have been removed from his control. He is utterly dependent for all his needs; he can not contribute to the welfare of his family, even as they have largely given over most of their lives to his care. That they don't seem to mind this fact is even a source of humiliation to him; he feels that all his interactions with other people are always, inevitably, reduced to a transaction between an independent, capable person and a person who is constantly dependent, not an equal; and in return, there is a subtle pressure — perhaps expectation would be a better word — that he reward their efforts by remaining constantly cheerful and upbeat and grateful for a life that has become an unendurable burden for him.
All of those factors add up to Ramon as a life without dignity, but perhaps the most undignified thing of all is to have his decision challenged. He resents it when people approach him as if he's made a rash decision; he hasn't. He's given the matter consideration from a perspective they can't possibly imagine. "I don't judge you for your decision to live," he tells one person, "what gives you the right to judge me for my decision?" he asks.
I'm afraid the preceding paragraphs might give the wrong impression of what the film is. "The Sea Inside" is not a gloomy film; remarkably, much of it is actually thrilling and beautifully uplifting. Ramon, wonderfully portrayed by Javier Bardem in a truly outstanding performance, is a man possessed of both an incredible sadness and beatific calm; like the ocean, he seems to balance surging inner storms with a placid eternal patience.
His sad eyes, set in a youngish, fairly untroubled face, are in constant contrast to a calm, sweet smile. In the film, he offers a wonderful explanation for the smile, but his explanation doesn't fully explain the enigma that he presents to the world. Visitors find his manner calm and reassuring; they like being with him, in large part because of the smile. The smile makes it hard for them to comprehend that behind the smile is a man who has fully resolved to die.
Among those visitors is a young woman named Rosa (Lola Duenas) who, after seeing Ramon on TV, decides to pay him a visit in the hopes of changing his mind. In her attempt, however, she quickly learns that her blanket dismissal of his wishes are very much a part of the loss of dignity Ramon fears.
Another woman, Gené, (Clara Segura) works for a group seeking to help Ramon with his cause. Though people keep trying to cast her as a "right to die" advocate, she refuses their assessment. She doesn't recommend death to anyone; what she does stand for, she says, is freedom: the freedom to live or the freedom to die.
The third visitor is Julia (Belen Rueda) a lawyer brought in by Gené to prepare Ramon's legal case. Julia takes his case because she is suffering from a degenerative nerve disease that will eventually leave her in a vegetative state, a prospect that terrifies her. The outcome of Ramon's case will have an effect on a choice she will soon be required to make regarding her own life.
And that's the end of all the death talk for now, because ultimately I think "The Sea Inside" is about life and love in all its varying and endless complexities. There are several different manifestations of love in the film. The love of Ramon's family in the way they take care of him, the love of Rosa as she gradually learns to care for him by accepting and respecting his wishes, the love of Gené who seems born with an amazing gift to see Ramon, and others like him, only as a human being like any other, and there is the love of Julia, who, though married, embarks on a complex love affair with Ramon, triggering longings in him that only exacerbate his quiet despair.
Perhaps the greatest love is exhibited by Ramon's sister-in-law, Manuela, who has provided almost all of Ramon's daily care. In a superb performance by Mabel Rivera, Manuela shows her love not only through her patient devotion and care, but also through her respect for his wishes. Her very life has been devoted to keeping him alive, yet she is one of his strongest advocates for his right to choose.
It is sad — so very, very sad — that such a complex, beautiful work of art as "The Sea Inside" will be simplistically reduced by some to nothing more than a pro-euthanasia creed. It is so very much more than that. So very much more.
The matter presented in the film is not pro-euthanasia but, as Gené says, a matter of freedom. Ramon views life as a right, not an obligation. Those who would turn it into an obligation are not staking out a pro-life stance but rather an anti-death stance — not the same thing at all.
The film offers many reasons for Ramon to be grateful to be alive. Most of the film's characters are also grateful to be alive. I'm willing to bet that the experience of most audience members would be an appreciation of what it means to be alive.
In the end, it doesn't really matter; only Ramon knows what it is to have to endure life as it is experienced by Ramon, and the point of the film is that even if we were all quadriplegics, we still would not have enough wisdom to tell Ramon what to feel or do with his life.
The film does not pretend to such wisdom either; it's purpose is not to preach but to merely raise questions, chief of which is this: What, really, is the value of life if it needs to be imposed against a person's will? Surely the imposition actually cheapens the gift for its forced acceptance?
I do know this: "The Sea Inside" invoked an audience reaction I've experienced only rarely. There is a scene near the end of such naked truth and reality that I could feel, actually feel, the audience's tension as a palpable thing of weight and heft; the shared intake of breath, holding onto it as Ramon delivers his last testament to the world, with only his death releasing us to breathe again.
And draw in our next breath, and our next breath, and exhale and again as the mysterious process of life goes on.