This week's movie was :
Planet of Snail, by Seung-Jun
"If you want to be free from the eyes & ears... be an astronaut like me..."
What's it about?
Planet of Snail is a movie about someone who has as little input of the worlds as you can imagine: someone who can't neither see or hear. About how someone for whom it is impossible to lead a live as we know it manages a beautiful day to day existence, with the care of her loved one and the aid of modern technology. He studies, he reads, he writes beautiful essays and above all, he is still able to sense life.
My first and strongest impressions
Upon watching the movie there where three main things in my mind all the time.
First of all, it's impossible to miss the beauty of the movie itself. The way this movie was shot makes it a delight to watch, given the story, it becomes even more. Though at some point you do feel that this is somehow "dramatized", as a fellow watcher pointed out later.
The second, I felt that somehow this becomes an exploration in the co-dependency that a couple can acquire. And no, I'm not speaking of the disabled man who protagonizes the movie, but about the wife who is there at absolutely all times. Maybe it's a super great act of love, and as I can't understand it I categorize it as something I can... I don't know, but I still feel there is something more to this than just love for the other.
The third... is of course admiration, for both, this man who accepts and embraces life, as well as for his wife who not only manages to help him all the time, but at least in the movie... shows a kind of patience as such strong virtue that I'm sure only a few humans have.
In perspective...
Once again we held a small discussion afterwards, and as ever, this becomes as rich as watching the movie.
The thing that I pointed out first was the dependency I felt, and how I feel this can't be good. Some others in the group have agreed, some others not. The thing is that in the end, with their other statements they made me see how I was missing the whole picture. Being disables isn't easy, neither for the disabled one, nor for those ones around. And it requires a great deal of love and self sacrifice to manage, and yes, as I mentioned before, being honest is not something I could do by self choice. The guy doesn't have any... but the wife, she does and nevertheless decides to share her life this way, being the eyes and ears of her husband.
Also, it was pointed out that in every couple there are things that one does better than the other, and this is how they complement each other... being in this case greater the difference on each spouse's capabilities, the work needed to generate balance might be also greater, though in the end they are still a normal couple. So, I have to thank for this insight.
Other of the most valuable contributions that I need to point out is one that brought us to the ground. Having a disability is not comfortable. Yes, they become an example of life, but in the end they are human like everyone of us, even though they are living in extraordinary conditions.
This brings me to the next point I want to state. I saw on screen the fear that this people have of never finding love, of being alone, of not getting all that the world has to offer... and I could find similarities, those were thoughts that might not differ from my own, from my best friend's, or from those of the person standing nearby at the office. Once again: we are all human. We still set our own barriers, we also like diving alone in our own universe, but still have the opportunity to come back down and as Young-Chan says, enjoy the ride of life:
"The earth is a smooth train, I am riding. From morning to noon, from noon to night. I'm riding by earth lying still on my bed".
There was many other great input on the discussion... but that deserves a separate post I'll write some other time.
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