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The fight for the right to die rages on film

By Stephen Holden
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Friday, Mar 11, 2005, Page 17

The Sea inside, by Spanish film maker Alejandro Amenabar, won an Oscar for the best foreign language film two weeks ago. PHOTO: EPA

The Sea Inside, the story of a quadriplegic activist fighting for the right to die, struggles to transcend the disease-of-the-week genre to which it belongs. Yet there is no escaping the fact that the true story of Ramon Sampedro, a former ship's mechanic seeking a final exit after three decades of agonizing immobility, is defined by its theme.

The movie avoids becoming a formulaic dialogue that pits religious and secular cheerleaders against one another. Even so, the characters often feel like schematic formulations intended to balance the story.

The deepest philosophical questions posed by euthanasia are only glancingly addressed. The film fails to convey the claustrophobic terror experienced by a man who called his book Letters From Hell.

Sensitively portrayed by the great Spanish actor Javier Bardem, Ramon regards his life in the wake of a crippling accident in his mid-20s as a cruel, cosmic joke.

In his imagination, he is still as he was before: a Zorba-like force of nature who once sailed the world. Now the only thing sustaining his spirit is his acute mind, which torments him with dreams of a physical life that is just a memory.

Film notes: The Sea Inside Directed by: Alejandro Amenabar Starring: Javier Bardem (Ramon Sampedro), Belen Rueda (Julia), Lola Duenas (Rosa), Mabel Rivera (Manuela), Celso Bugallo (Jos), Clara Segura (Gen), Joan Dalmau (Joaquin), Tamar Novas (Javi) and Francesc Garrido (Marc) Running time: 125 minutes Taiwan Release: Today

Alejandro Amenabar, the gifted 32-year-old director of The Others and Open Your Eyes, is clearly fixated on the shadowy area between life, death and the spirit world.

On Jan 12, 1998, the 55-year-old Sampedro ended his life by drinking cyanide. His assisted suicide involved 10 collaborators, in addition to a cameraman. Each participant in the process contributed without having enough knowledge to be legally indicted for murder. After his death, hundreds of supporters of his cause wrote letters, confessing to having aided and abetted him.

Unambiguously pro-euthanasia on one hand, it shows how Ramon infused many around him with a charged sense of life's possibility.

Bardem, acting above the neck except in brief flashbacks and fantasies, creates a complicated male character.

Members of Ramon's religious farming family slave to keep him alive but refuse to help him in his battle to die with dignity.

And two women enter his life. The first, his lawyer Julia (Belen Rueda), embraces his cause, becomes his soul mate and helps him produce a book of poems. The second, Rosa (Lola Duenas), is a beleaguered single mother who visits Ramon after seeing him on television and falls in love.

In the end, though, the film's suspenseful narrative devices feel contrived when applied to what's supposed to be a true story of life, death and the living hell from which Ramon finally escapes.
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