Movie-The Sea Inside

This remarkable and thoughtful Spanish movie, starring Javier Bardem (known best in the U.S for No Country for Old Men) focuses on the one man, a paraplegic, fighting for the right to end his life legally.

The Sea Inside (2004) is based on a true story and Bardem plays the main character of Ramon Sampedro, who does not lead an outwardly miserable existence. He has loved ones and friends and could have an active social and love life. He is charming and creative, and very paralyzed, from the neck down. And he feels his life is not worth living...he feels it is not life, despite all the things mentioned above. And most important to note...he does not try to speak for anyone else...no other who are paralysed, not others who are handicapped...he speaks only for himself, what it means to him, how he feels about the accident that has left him this way. He is NOT an advocate for any group, but an advocate for his individual choice.

This movie, these questions, these legal yearnings, for society to make legal his suicide are far reaching questions, and that is what makes this movie so good. Whether you agree with what he is asking or not--- if you are a moral person, a thinking person, you ask yourself so many questions regarding this question. First---whether you agree or not, should the courts and society agree in his case? What cases should the courts agree in? Where is the line between suffering and just plain living?

This fine film explores these moral dilemmas and so many more in this delicate and very gray issue. And even in this film, there is very little black and white, though it is clear it sides with Sampedro wanting to be able to die with dignity. But it does not make the choice with ease, putting family and friends in the middle of the moral quandary. Does what one person want make it right for all, and does it make it right for society?

The Sea Inside does not answer these questions...indeed, it cannot. But it can make us ask them more, of ourselves and our family and friends. That is a worthy discussion, and I think it may make Ramon Sampedro happy that he provoked that discussion after all.