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User's review
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[ATTENTION: This review reveals content of the movie.]
When Heidegger writes that being toward death makes possible authentic human existence, he has in mind the sort of actions that are brought out so well in this film. All of us are fatefully sent toward death; but, for the most part we don't want to think about that -- and to that extent, according to Heidegger, we cannot genuinely take hold of our lives. Kate in the story suffers a fate no different than the fate that we all move toward. In her case, medicine compels her to talk about it -- she is, as the saying goes "dying". Now, there are two ways to react to that notion: you can deny it, or you can live into the face of it. The mother character chooses to deny it, to horrible effect. Kate and her romantic partner are in tune with their own mortality, and that is the reason they seem to rise above the petty batles, like angels. I thought the late scene in which friends and family members were talking about "visualization" and women who could lift cars when their chidlren were in trouble -- I thought that scene particularly poignant because it showed how absurd people can be in their efforts to deny the inevitability pf death, and yet the Kate character in particular responds with grace and what seems like silent amusement, as if she has a secret. And in a sense she does. Death is part of her life, as it is for all of us. By accepting that she found an opportunity to make good her own life, while she still had a chance. Her secret, then, is her knowledge that the actions of others are driven by fear and a desperate effort to escape and look away from what will inevitably overcome them regardless. Thus, far more than a morality tale, I saw this as an authenticity tale. It spoke to me of strength rather than illness -- the strength of resoluteness in the presence of one's own (and one's loved one's) fated sending.
9/10
30.6.2009 -
com2013@ - age: 13-17
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