Excerpt from a film review
". Grant is a caring man who loves his wife so much that even when he persuades her to go into a clinic, he backs down at the last minutes and tells her: "Don't go…Don't go like this".
Fiona, on the other hand, is nothing more than the same; only that she finds difficult to remember or to find the love she feels, because of her condition. On the same day she checks-in to the clinic, she and Grant go to her new bedroom. "You know what I would like? I would like to make love and then I would like you to go". This is how she expresses her feelings. And Grant is a very wise man, we realize from his conversations with other characters, but is unable to act wisely about what's happening because he's blinded by love; and we are fools when we are in love. The age doesn't matter."
"I remember the last time I saw my mother. I sat on the end of her bed, strumming guitar, and singing a song she used to sing to us as children. I hoped she might remember it. She would probably not, however, recognise her son. Or even speak. She had Alzheimer's.
Says Producer Simone Urdl, "The role of Alzheimer's in the film is a metaphor for how memory plays out in a long term relationship: what we chose to remember, what we choose to forget." And our ability to recall things, as Oscar Wilde pointed out, is highly selective.
My last conversation with my mother, before she was institutionalised, or I even realised what was happening, was a long distance phone call. After chatting happily for five minutes, she said, quite chirpily and very politely, "What's your name again?" Memory is not always a two-way process. Nor objective. But, like this film, it can be mesmerising, heart-wrenching, and a remarkably intimate vision. "
My THOTS
Although it was Fiona that won an award for her role... but it is Grant acting that struck a deep chord in me...
his reactions to Christie and her illness provided the deep emotional undercurrent that carried this film.
When he quietly begs her not to go... in a way which i can see myself too...
The look on his face when he leaves her behind at medowlake for the first time.
The look on his face when he was shoveling snow n just give up. And when he tells the nurse he never wanted to be away from her... you can see how completely lost n helpless he have become.. and lastly the look of pain & love he subtlety depicts when he sat alone on the couch looking at the woman he love in the arm of other man... it just grab me as so real... is as if i can sense his emotion from the reflection of his eyes..
if i say i understand the amount of love in there... i wonder if anyone will believe me....
afterthot.... Love can really make a person do amazing things... if the highest form of Love can drive someone to give up something perfect for a scoundrel.. i am not amaze, a person with jus a small amount of true love will do... you have not live life until you have live for someone else...
". Grant is a caring man who loves his wife so much that even when he persuades her to go into a clinic, he backs down at the last minutes and tells her: "Don't go…Don't go like this".
Fiona, on the other hand, is nothing more than the same; only that she finds difficult to remember or to find the love she feels, because of her condition. On the same day she checks-in to the clinic, she and Grant go to her new bedroom. "You know what I would like? I would like to make love and then I would like you to go". This is how she expresses her feelings. And Grant is a very wise man, we realize from his conversations with other characters, but is unable to act wisely about what's happening because he's blinded by love; and we are fools when we are in love. The age doesn't matter."
"I remember the last time I saw my mother. I sat on the end of her bed, strumming guitar, and singing a song she used to sing to us as children. I hoped she might remember it. She would probably not, however, recognise her son. Or even speak. She had Alzheimer's.
Says Producer Simone Urdl, "The role of Alzheimer's in the film is a metaphor for how memory plays out in a long term relationship: what we chose to remember, what we choose to forget." And our ability to recall things, as Oscar Wilde pointed out, is highly selective.
My last conversation with my mother, before she was institutionalised, or I even realised what was happening, was a long distance phone call. After chatting happily for five minutes, she said, quite chirpily and very politely, "What's your name again?" Memory is not always a two-way process. Nor objective. But, like this film, it can be mesmerising, heart-wrenching, and a remarkably intimate vision. "
My THOTS
Although it was Fiona that won an award for her role... but it is Grant acting that struck a deep chord in me...
his reactions to Christie and her illness provided the deep emotional undercurrent that carried this film.
When he quietly begs her not to go... in a way which i can see myself too...
The look on his face when he leaves her behind at medowlake for the first time.
The look on his face when he was shoveling snow n just give up. And when he tells the nurse he never wanted to be away from her... you can see how completely lost n helpless he have become.. and lastly the look of pain & love he subtlety depicts when he sat alone on the couch looking at the woman he love in the arm of other man... it just grab me as so real... is as if i can sense his emotion from the reflection of his eyes..
if i say i understand the amount of love in there... i wonder if anyone will believe me....
afterthot.... Love can really make a person do amazing things... if the highest form of Love can drive someone to give up something perfect for a scoundrel.. i am not amaze, a person with jus a small amount of true love will do... you have not live life until you have live for someone else...