Translated…
We are constantly learning through our lives, because there are, just too many things about life that we have yet to, understand, and most of the times, we were all, searching for the answers to the questions that confused us. The movie made from the real-life French character, had casted this even harder to consider issue about life and death for the viewers, as we get older and weaker and became unable to care for ourselves, can we choose, to leave this world in a dignified manner, instead of lying sick, in the bed of a nursing home, like we’re candles, dying in the wind, waiting, to get completely, blown out? And, how, will those we leave behind cope with the departure of their dearly beloved?
Madeline who is ninety-two year-old, fought hard for the issues of human rights, and she was also a midwife, her life is considered, very rich, but, as she’d discovered that her own health was on the decline, before she’d become a burden to her loved ones, she’d told her friends and families on her birthday party, that she was going to, end her own life two months from then, turning this originally, celebratory occasion of her birthday, to be, filled with gloom instantly.
After this shocking announcement on her own birthday, everybody she loved all wanted her to put the thought out of her mind, because in everybody’s views, she’d not had too much trials to carry, and there were, so many wonderful things in life she had, yet to experience; if she was just, tired, and maybe, having her family close by, taking her out on ventures, can manage to help her reignite her love for life again. And, as her families started engaging in heated discussion about it, they’d overlooked the issue behind her purpose of making the decisions.
Through the angle of Madeline’s daughter, Diane, the movie described how she’d passed through the final stage of life accompanying by her mother’s side, but, there’s no oversell on the sorrows of how death was approaching, instead, the film used this filled-with every-day life to show how the family members had altered their views on her death. From the resisting in the very beginning, to finally, letting go at the very end; if you and I had been, confronted with similar matters in the film, naturally, we’d fight, for even just one more second with the ones we loved.
And following that, with the passing of every second, we would, come to realize, that everything is, already set, and maybe, we’d struggle, in denial, or hoped, that we can somehow, be in charge of the time of death. After all, the mother, in order to have her dignity intact, made a deadline for herself, this, is not similar to how when you battled those terminal illnesses, or the accidents that took lives away, that left you, unprepared, instead, telling you, that on that day, we will, say goodbye.
This life lesson of saying goodbye, even if we don’t want to face it ourselves, we will need to, eventually. Madeline chose to let Diane, along with her dearly beloved relatives and friends to have enough time to prepare for her departure, in the movie, the African American nurse’s aide had this ordinary-as-day-and-night view of death, and could joke on the issues of death with Madeline on the subjects like it was, an after meal chit-chat. Comparing to Diane’s colleague, she’d chosen to place her own mother into a nursing home, having someone to care for her, and her elderly mother can live for longer.
Diane and her family had considered the option of nursing home placement, it’s just, that for Madeline, who’d, fought so hard, for her own right, to die in a dignified way, spending her final days at the nursing home was, never what she’d wanted. The segments in the movie, it’d delicately, pointed out the struggles that the members of the family endured, and how they’d slowly shifted their beliefs from unaccepting, fighting, to finally accepting, and learned to support one another, to be prepared, allowing, Madeline, to leave this world, in a perfect end, with her beauty and grace intact.
This movie made us learn that we need to prepare, for what’s coming our ways. The daily conversations that kept coming up in the movies, the flipping to find the memories back, seemed so ordinary, but, the moments were, very touching. After the goodbyes are said, we may be able to understand, that the end of life doesn’t mean goodbye forever, that those whom we loved who had departed, will forever, be living, inside our hearts.
So, the purpose of this movie is to signify the importance to respect the elderly, to let them have their dignities when they’re about to die, to NOT make choices that we, their young believed to be best for them, but to allow them to make their own decisions, regarding their final rites. But, it is, not at all, easy to do, after all, who can say, that one would be willing to, see someone one loves die on her/his own terms? Saying goodbye in one’s own way, that, is the important matter here.