Guest Author - Peggy Maddox
The title of this Spanish movie translates as The Sea Inside or The Sea Within. There's quite a conversation on the IMDb site about the title translation, arguing that it should be something like "The Sea Outside", or "The Sea Far Away," but I think the English translation The Sea Within is apt. ("Within" sounds more poetic to me than "inside.")
Whatever the title, this movie is a tour de force that deserved its 2005 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year and the many other prestigious awards it won.
The central character is played by Javier Bardem, an established Spansh actor who is known to American audiences from several English-language films, perhaps most notably the award-winning No Country For Old Men (2007) in which he plays an implacable killer.
Director: Alejandro Amenábar
Writers: Alejandro Amenábar and Mateo Gil
Based on the true story of Ramon Sampedro, a Spaniard who fought a 30-year legal battle for the right to die, Mar Adentro is a moving and unforgettable look into the lives of an ordinary family touched by catastrophic illness.
Sampedro was a ship's mechanic. At home on leave, he dived into the ocean and landed in such a way as to damage his spine, becoming a quadraplegic. He was 25 years old. His brother, also a seaman, rearranged his life in order to care for him.
The movie begins about 28 years after the accident.
Ramon, with the help of lawyers working to legalize euthanasia, has been trying to win permission to die by assisted suicide. Paralyzed from the neck down, he is entirely dependent upon others.
Ramon's sister-in-law Manuela (Mabel Ribera) is his primary care-giver, bathing him, turning him, and feeding him. His brother José (Celso Bugallo) supports the family, but cannot escape feelings of bitterness that his own choices in life have been reduced because of his brother's injury.
Ramon's teenaged nephew Javi (Tamar Novas) helps him with his writing and with inventions he designs to make his life easier. For example, Ramon writes by holding a modified pencil in his teeth.
The Sampedro father Germain (Alberto Jimenez) suffers from seeing his once-strong and independent son reduced to helplessness, and from knowing that his son wants to die.
Bardem's acting ability is extraordinary. No one who saw him as the killer in No Country and then in this part could doubt that he is one of the few actors who can play any role.
This is a kind of film hard to find in American theatres. No car chases. No explosions. None of the usual casting of the same old Brad-Leonardo-Angelina-Kate-etc regulars who have become so regular as to be tiresome. Mar Adentro is a movie about people and relationships. It grips the viewer from the first scene when Gené places the needle on the phonograph for the helpless man in the bed and never lets go until the final frame. All the dialogue is in Spanish, but large, easy-to-read subtitles make it easy to follow.
