(no subject)
Tonight, I watched the movie Awakenings, based on the book by neurologist Oliver Sacks, which was itself based on his real-life experiences. Patients 'asleep' (catatonic) for decades but, thanks to a drug for another disease, they were awakened for a bittersweetly brief time one summer. This brought up the whole question of whether it was right to give life just to take it away. A very poignant, moving film. As the patients learn to live, so does the painfully shy doctor who helps wakes them up.
An especially excellent performance given by Robert De Niro, who more than showed what a good actor he could be when not self-parodying. He played the first patient to be given the experimental treatment and 'awakened', rejoicing in the new life he's been given, only to see that new life and dignity painfully slip away through his very troubled fingers.
Robin Williams was in the part of Dr Malcolm Sayer, the Sacks character, acting with a subtlety I wish he'd used more often in his films.
Sayer is the one who believed from the beginning that these catatonic patients, victims of an encephalitis epidemic, were not hopeless cases, and that their higher functions, their minds, were still intact underneath all that blankness. He finds a drug that the hospital is dubious about, but relieves their catatonia and lets them live, if imprisoned within the confines of the hospital. As Robert De Niro's character's mental health degrades, however, his initial hope and joy for the patients disappears, and he realises the miracle of the re-awakening cannot last. This is when the optimistic mood of the film changes to something far more depressing.
There's a metaphor in the film for spending most of your life 'asleep' and finally 'waking up' to it. It's a film that provokes emotions good and bad, and about appreciating the life you got. Most of all, though, it's about these patients, and their own literal awakening.
An especially excellent performance given by Robert De Niro, who more than showed what a good actor he could be when not self-parodying. He played the first patient to be given the experimental treatment and 'awakened', rejoicing in the new life he's been given, only to see that new life and dignity painfully slip away through his very troubled fingers.
Robin Williams was in the part of Dr Malcolm Sayer, the Sacks character, acting with a subtlety I wish he'd used more often in his films.
Sayer is the one who believed from the beginning that these catatonic patients, victims of an encephalitis epidemic, were not hopeless cases, and that their higher functions, their minds, were still intact underneath all that blankness. He finds a drug that the hospital is dubious about, but relieves their catatonia and lets them live, if imprisoned within the confines of the hospital. As Robert De Niro's character's mental health degrades, however, his initial hope and joy for the patients disappears, and he realises the miracle of the re-awakening cannot last. This is when the optimistic mood of the film changes to something far more depressing.
There's a metaphor in the film for spending most of your life 'asleep' and finally 'waking up' to it. It's a film that provokes emotions good and bad, and about appreciating the life you got. Most of all, though, it's about these patients, and their own literal awakening.