Image Courtesy of www.amazon.com
Director:
Alejandro Amenabar
Cast:
Javier Bardem……….Ramón Sampedro
Belén Rueda……….Julia
Lola Dueñas……….Rosa
Mabel Rivera……….Manuela
Celso Bugallo……….José
Clara Segura……….Gené
Joan Dalmau……….JoaquÃÂn
Alberto Jiménez……….Germán
Tamar Novas……….Javier ‘Javi’ Sampedro
Francesc Garrido……….Marc
José MarÃÂa Pou……….Padre Francisco
Alberto Amarilla……….Hermano Andrés
Andrea Occhipinti……….Santiago
Federico Pérez Rey……….Conductor (Driver)
Nicolás Fernández Luna……….Cristian
The Movie
Assisted suicide was a theme at the 2005 Academy Awards in a weird way. The Best Director, Best Supporting Actor and Best Actress all came from winning entry Million Dollar Baby. This is also true of the best foreign film as voted by the Academy, The Sea Inside, which follows the final days of a Spanish poet fighting for his right to die.
Javier Bardem stars as Ramón Sampedro, a quadriplegic poet who fought a remarkably controversial campaign to die for over 30 years. Being denied this, he ultimately arranged for his own assisted suicide. But this movie isn’t just about Sampedro; it’s an examination of assisted suicide that deal with the issue with a certain profound sense of depth and humanity just as Sampedro dealt with his own life did until his death in 1998.
Sampedro’s life was something that not too many people would want, as his eventual death was preferable to the severe paralysis that marred his life. Sampedro was very unique in how he dealt with his paralysis, as he refused to even use a wheelchair to get around. And as such his life story is something that would be a challenge for any actor to be able to play, as not being able to use the body as a means of expression coupled with a man whose attempt to end his existence is quite controversial.
Bardem plays Sampedro with a certain tragedy; on one hand you want to pity him, as he can barely move his head. On the other hand he is a very strong, well-developed character that doesn’t have any self-pity. With such a unique challenge for an actor, Bardem takes the handicap of his character and doesn’t let it be the thing you notice about him on-screen. It may be his handicap but he does a real wonderful job in his portrayal of Sampedro that his handicap isn’t a hindrance. His struggle for death and his dignity in trying to get people to not pity him is fascinating to watch.
Too bad the movie surrounding Bardem’s performance isn’t as high a level quality as Bardem’s performance. The Sea Inside suffers a lot from factors outside of its’ main character. Amenabar does a lot of good in trying to get the main message of the movie across about human dignity, but the problem is that his subtlety is lacking at times. In his quest to try and convey Sampedro’s story, Amenabar almost turns this into a sermon about human dignity. His supporting characters all basically say the same sort of thing that Bardem’s Sampedro does; the movie sways heavily for that side of the argument. There are other ways to convey your message and Amenabar feels that outright persuasion is the best method.
That isn’t to say that this is a bad movie; it’s a good movie that could’ve done a lot better. The supporting cast is superb, as Julia (Belen Rueda) offers a viable alternative for life as opposed to Sampedro wishing for death. The movie tries to show the other side of the coin through Julia and her struggles but at the same time the film has a slant against her. Her viewpoints for life are always presented in a much more negative context as Sampedro always is focused on in a much more positive light.
This is a movie full of quality acting but whose focus is too narrow. Amenabar does a wonderful job of being able to convey the story itself, as we get a sense of the world around Sampedro and what he endured until he was able to take his own life. He directs it smartly and frames it well, but ultimately his vision overpowers his story and the movie suffers because of it.
Score : 7.5/10
The Video
Everything on this DVD looks as good as the film transfer, a rarity in DVD releases as the extras generally tend to look much more rough. The main feature has definitely been cleaned up for DVD as it looks cleaner and clearer than in the theatre. It is an absolutely sharp-looking movie transfer; it’s good, better than some, but doesn’t stand out as superb.
Score : 7/10
The Audio
The audio is Dolby 5.1 so the sound comes through quite clear, but the DVD doesn’t take advantage of this as the sound is much like the video. It’s good, but not great. This is a dialogue-driven movie, of course, but the background music has a tendency to overwhelm the dialogue at times just because of it’s’ intensity. It comes in crystal clear and quite nice, I admit, but it overpowers the dialogue of the film at times.
Score : 7/10
The Extras
Just as a warning, everything in the extras is spoken and written in Spanish so you are going to need to have your subtitles on (or the ability to speak Spanish) to enjoy the extra segments.
Commentary from writer-director Alejandro Amenabar Amenabar provides commentary about the movie in Spanish. You have to have the subtitles on in order to understand Amenabar; if you don’t speak Spanish you are out of luck if you want to understand the movie and hear the commentary. It comes down to two options: you can listen to the movie with subtitles and not hear the commentary, or hear the commentary and not be able to understand what the actors are saying. In a movie that is about a tough choice to make and those it affects the DVD provides a similar (if less deadly) choice to make for the viewer.
Deleted scenes A total of about 8 minutes or so were taken out of the movie, and its’ apparent why these three scenes were taken out of the final cut of the movie as they really don’t add much to the story. They are fully rendered and have the same sort of quality the movie transfer.
Behind-the-scenes documentary The principles of the movie take you behind the making of the movie from the story of Sampredo (and what the film-makers thought of it) as well as their account of how they got the movie made. They go through and talk about how they wrote dialogue, the trials of making the movie while trying to retain the native look and feel of Spain as well as a discussion about trying to relate the movie and the issue of euthanasia as well. The documentary isn’t just limited to the principles talking as we go from the discussion to film of the first several days of shooting. From there is the scenery building and early principle photography at the same studio where “The Others” was filmed; it’s a fascinating look at European film-making. Everything to do about making this movie is covered in much more detail than the usual “making of” fluff piece. Bardem contributes a bit to this as he talks about the emotional depth it took to portray the character as well as having the crew talk about trying to create the world around.
This is the main extra provided and it’s quite the extra, checking in at 84 minutes, but if you can tolerate subtitles than this is an extra well worth it.
Trailers The original theatrical trailer for this movie is featured as well as those for Vera Drake and A Very Long Engagement.
Photo Gallery 32 photographs of the movie from various times and phases of making the movie presented in a slide-show format are there for your enjoyment. It’s a unique look at the film as we see out-take style shots and off-screen moments captured at brief glances.
Storyboard Gallery These are 32 stills of the storyboard the crew used and provide a definitely unique look at the plot of the movie from the vantage point of how they wanted to shoot it.
Set Design Gallery 17 stills of sketches about the movie’s scenery help to give you an inside as to how they developed the very dark look and tone of the movie.
Score : 8/10
