The Sea Inside Assignment- Posts 1-3

I think the film The Sea Inside is absolutely devastating and painful to watch. I could not imagine staying in the same bed in the same room for 28 years and not being able to change that. I think everyone has the right to do what he or she wishes if there is a benefit. Even if that wish is death, I don’t think anyone should stop Ramon, especially the court of his country. Now, there are certain circumstances that I may not agree with allowing someone to die, but this man has obviously had enough time to think out his decision to die. His eventual action of killing himself, with help, was his choice. I think he had the right to take himself out of the pain and also out of the boredom that was his life without motion. I think the friends who helped him truly loved him and knew dying was his greatest wish. They understood the pain and suffering he went through each day being a quadriplegic. Although they may feel guilt and regret, they should know that they actually helped him more than hurt him as it was killing him to live until the next day.
Between The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and The Sea Inside, there are many similarities and differences. The two stories are similar as they both had the main person as a quadriplegic. Moreover, both Bauby and Ramon had a sort of sarcastic sense of humor towards their conditions. Although they are similar in that way, I think the differences between the two stories are much more prevalent. An easy difference is that Ramon can talk, while Bauby cannot. This “gift” helps Ramon express his desire to die. Bauby, on the other hand, never expresses the want to die in his memoir. While the two men both express hope through imagination- Ramon with his flying and Bauby with his fond memories-, I think Bauby shows more hope towards the future as he allows himself to express his emotions more freely. I think the movie, The Sea Inside, was more powerful because it dealt with the want to die- something not discussed much in daily life. It’s hard to put myself in the position to even think about dying, let alone desiring to die. Because of the issue’s controversy, The Sea Inside had a much more powerful impact on me.
The camera movements in The Sea Inside were well thought out and added a lot to the director’s message. A first scene where I noticed that the camera shots were meaningful was the scene where Ramon first meets Julia. At first, they shot Ramon from high angle, making him seem weak and powerless. To add to this the director takes a pan of Ramon’s whole body to introduce his awful condition. As Ramon begins to talk to Julia, the camera takes an eye level close up of him to show him from Julia’s eyes. This shows that Julia can relate to his condition and his want to die. As Ramon begins discussing how moving his hand 5 inches to touch Julia’s is an impossible journey, the camera tilts down to their hands to make a high angle that shows Ramon’s weakness. Another scene where the camera movements helped the message was in the scene where Ramon dove into the sea and broke his neck (where he first became a quadriplegic). Before the viewer even knows he broke his neck, the director foreshadows that something bad is going to happen as he shows Ramon diving from a high angle- he is doomed. Those two scenes were the most prominent, in my opinion, in the director’s technique of camera movements.