Amour and The Sea Inside

Amour (2012). Director: Michael Haneke

The Sea Inside (2004). Director: Alejandro Amenábar

Amour and The Sea Inside are two movies made ten years apart, the former a French film and the latter a Spanish one. There might not be any obvious connections between them. However, when I saw Amour recently, it immediately reminded me of this other movie that I saw almost ten years ago. Although this two movies are different in many ways, both inspire lots of thoughts on one same sensitive issue: if the dignity of living is degrading, would terminating life be a sacrilege to life itself? The two movies leave their own footnotes on this matter, and I would like to write down my thoughts here. 

The Sea Inside bases itself on a true story of a man named Ramon, who has suffered quadriplegia after a diving accident and his 30-year fight for the right to end his own life with dignity. Amour, on the other hand, tells a poignant story of an elderly couple after the wife suffers a stroke that both paralyzes one side of her body and makes her mind deteriorate. In The Sea Inside, the man eventually has his wish granted; he ends his own life when in his opinion there is no grace left. In Amour, the husband ends up smothering his wife with a pillow when he sees that all the elegance she used to have has left her. Two deaths, both for the lost of dignity and grace of life. 

The voice in The Sea Within is quite critical. It supports the idea that everyone should have the right to end his or her own life when there is no longer any dignity in keeping on living. What I think is missing from this movie is the other side of the free will coin: the choice of keeping on living, but the movie does come close. In the movie, a catholic priest, whose limbs and torso are also paralyzed, comes over one day and tries to dissuade Ramon from conducting an act that in his opinion is disrespectful to God. This priest could have been a perfect counterpoint if he (or the director, because I don’t know how close this part is to the true story) had not based his whole reasoning upon biblical teachings. It would have generated more spark if the main character in The Intouchables could have been there to have a conversation with Ramon. 

Amour, a movie with much less intention to criticize, is a lament to the loss of grace as a consequence of both illness and age. It isn’t trying to argue that what the husband does is not a crime. In my opinion, it simply wants to present an irony, where taking someone’s life can be an act of love, as cruel  as it might seem. 

As different as their standpoints and agenda, Amour and The Sea Inside both point out how much we humans value life but also how much we demand from life. When the grace of life deteriorates, some of us might honor life by putting an end to such disgrace. Maybe it’s hard to argue sometimes whether this is an act of bravery or cowardice, or whether this is taking responsibility of one’s own life or escaping from life when it brings more hardship than happiness, but we as humans must contemplate on such situations and should have the free will to make a choice when faced with one. 

* As an interesting side note, I was very impressed by the performance of the leading actor in The Sea Inside, only to realize years later that he is Javier Bardem. No wonder.