鷹揚空

I saw two special films last week. The first on is The Sea Inside, which based on the real-life story of Ramón Sampedro. Sampedro is a quadriplegic after a diving accident. He fought a 28-year campaign in support of euthanasia and his right to end his own life. He was not able to get the court to rule in his favor, but he did end his life by having drank cyanide. The second film is The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, which also based on the memoir of the same name by Jean-Dominique Bauby. These film depicts Bauby's life after suffering a massive stroke at the age of 43, which left him with a condition known as locked-in syndrome. The condition paralyzed him, with the exception of his left eyelid, so that he could only communicate by blinking.

In my opinion, both the main characters in the two films are paralyzed, but they held different attitude toward their life. Sampedro thought being a quadriplegic made his life without dignity, and euthanasia is the only way to let him hold the last self-respect. However, Bauby didn’t give up his life, and he tried his best to write the memoir by blinking his left eye. Although they all died at the end of the film, the meaning are totally different. I don’t mean to comment which character’s choice was the better one, but I had been taught since I was a child that Bauby’s attitude was right. No matter what you thought, the lesson from the two films we can learn is that “different attitudes toward the same situation will cause different stories and our own life is the combination of our different choices”.