The movie opens with a scene from a Brooklyn street in the mid 20's. The Great Depression was at its zenith, but for the 8 year-old boy Leonard, that is as far away from him as the moon. He lived his day like most kids in the city - moving joyfully between school, playgrounds, and supper at home. But soon he was gripped by something far more personal and sinister than the Depression - the Encephalitis Epidemic.
Fast-forward 36 years. Leonard was a resident at a psychiatric institute in Bronx. We do not know what we see when we look at Leonard. He stays frozen in the same position , day after day after day, unable to speak, unable to move. There are other residents like him, and neither the doctors nor the patients' love ones know what goes inside their mind. Could they be thinking inside? "Of course not," as one neurologist says in the beginning of this movie. Why not? "Because the implications of that would be unthinkable."
The static of the hospital is one day broken by a new doc in town, Dr. Sayer. Like his patient in many ways, he shuns from human touch, preferring instead the company of books and himself. He is shut off by shyness and inexperience, and even the way he holds his arms, close to his sides, shows a man wary of contact.
What then unfolds between Dr. Sayer and his catatonic patients is a summer of miraculous rebirth. The patients are awaken by a new experimental drug after more than thirty years of self-captivity. They were filled with wonder and gratitude to be able to movie and express themselves freely.
But it is not as simple as that. And as the movie unfolds, We are invited to meditate on the strangeness and wonder of the human personality. The movie reminds me of the book "Flowers for Algernon", and it beckons me to wonder: who are we? How much of this "self" that we center our lives around may simply be a result of luck, of being spare from neurological happenstance such as Alzheimer's or Encephalitis? If one has no hope, which is better: To remain hopeless, or to be given hope and then lose it again? I was moved by the extraordinary courage of the patients, especially Leonard, for bracing what life has to give, be it good or bad. In many ways, the movie is itself an "rebirth" experience. I am alive! I have freedom! I can be happy! So I will grow, so live, so die.
"那薔薇。你說。你寧願它
從來不曾開過。
與惆悵同日生：
那薔薇。你說。如果
開必有落，如果
一開即落，且一落永落"
-周夢蝶 (花心動 之一)
1 comment:
dude.. i saw that movie recently and it was so sad! its almost like playing as god when you wake him up from his spell and he slowly goes back to his comatose state. very very emotional rollercoaster ride.
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