Brehm Center

            In the spring of 2005 we headed for Spain as U.S. airwaves and newspapers took up the heated debate over the meaning of the sanctity of life (surrounding the death of Terry Schiavo). At the same time, a Spanish film about a similar situation was playing in U.S. theaters. Mar Adentro ( The Sea Inside) won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2005. It is based on the true story of Ramon Sampedro, a Spaniard in love with the sea who in a diving accident at age 26 becomes a quadriplegic. This biopic tells the story of his struggle to live … and to die. On the surface, the movie might seem an “endorsement” of euthanasia. But a movie’s plot is not necessarily all of what a movie is really about. Cinderella Man, for example is a “boxing” movie, but it is really about a man’s love for his family, and his courage and fortitude to care for them. In a similar way, The Sea Inside turns out surprisingly to be more about the vitality and wonder of life—even a life compromised, than it is about a man wanting to die.

Ramon has desired death for years, believing the sea to have already taken his life from him. Now after nearly thirty years of confinement in a bed in his brother’s home in Galicia, he is intent on dieing and joins a group dedicated to changing Spain’s laws to give him that right. Yet all who meet Ramon, including the viewing audience, are amazed at his gift of life. Here is the movie’s paradox – its plot is about Ramon’s desire for death, but its emotional heart and compelling power is the portrayal of the vitality of Ramon’s life. As Ramon Sampedro, Javier Bardem gives the performance of a lifetime. Able to act only from the neck up – with face and voice, he nevertheless embodies on the screen a robust character bursting with life--intelligent, funny, articulate, touching. He is the creator of art and poetry, a mentor to his nephew and a forceful attractive presence–two women fall in love with him! Ramon is a charismatic presence who infuses all who meet him with a sense of life’s possibility.

            The talented director, Alejandro Amenábar, allows two scenes in particular to define the movie. The first is a moment of magical realism, which provides the film its heart. Bedridden in his room overlooking the sea, Ramon without warning awkwardly stands to his feet, goes to the window, and then flies to the beach into the passionate embrace of his lawyer Julia (Belen Rueda) with whom he has fallen in love. They embrace as a Puccini aria that has been playing on his phonograph in his bedroom crescendos. Only then does the camera snap back to the room, exposing the dream as but a heartbreaking fantasy. After soaring with Ramon to the sea, viewers are caught short by the confinement of his real life. We cry out with Ramon.

            The second is a humorous, yet pointed argument between Ramon and a paraplegic priest who travels to Ramon’s house in order to convince him, that as the Church teaches, life is indeed worth living. Ramon refuses to be carried down from his upstairs bed to meet the cleric, and the priest cannot get his wheelchair upstairs to talk to him directly. Convinced, nevertheless, that he can rescue Ramon, the priest has his young acolyte shuttle up and down the stairs as his emissary, delivering one opposing argument after another. And Ramon has the acolyte deliver his rebuttal each time in return. And so the moral debate continues. The scene works both because of its incongruity and humor (you might say they are arguing from different “premises”!), and because the young intermediary allows the audience to explore from a certain “distance” life’s meaning and possibilities, given the cruelty of life’s circumstance.

As Ramon lies in his bed, he explains his position to any who will listen: life is “a right, not an obligation.” We can empathize with him, wondering how we would feel in his body. But we also sense that Ramon has tragically, if understandably, cast the options too narrowly. He cannot see a third possibility, one rooted strongly in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Is not life also to be viewed as a gift? The pathos of the movie centers in Ramon’s inability to understand this mystery, and the church’s inability to convey it to him—to embody life rather than to argue about death. But the movie’s wonder is its ability, nonetheless, to portray for all who see it the sanctity of life.

That critic after critic point out the paradox – what on the surface seems to be a movie about death, proves instead to be an exploration of life – is not surprising given the clear direction of the movie. What is interesting is that these reviewers seem also compelled to share their own personal experiences in response. James Berardinelli ends his review by reflecting, “I can think of few things more frustrating than being unable to touch my wife. I can understand wanting to die in this situation, yet I can admire a man like Christopher Reeve for soldiering on.” Roger Ebert turns similarly to speak of a number of his friends and acquaintances that are also quadriplegic, or paraplegic. These friends, he says, live with purpose and fulfillment. What is remarkable about such reviews, is The Sea Inside’s ability to create both “a common language” and “a shared empathy” between film, critic and reader. Rather than offer merely an “objective” review for their readers, each critic feels compelled both to respond personally to Ramon and to tell his or her own story, inviting us in the process to tell ours.

It is the same with us. We think of friends, such as Margery Corben who inspired us daily with life as she battled cancer. Or of Jim MacReynolds, a family friend in Rob’s youth who lay in an iron lung for several years. We prayed for him as a family every evening around the dinner table. We prayed for his healing, even as we thanked God for Jim’s life, and the gift of all life.

Robert K. Johnston and Catherine M. Barsotti