I was married on August 24th, 1968, in the Midwestern United States. The day before, under the same sun in Galicia, Spain, Ramón Sampedro stood atop his favorite diving spot, thinking about a woman. Distracted, he didn't notice that the riptide at the base of the ocean cliff had pulled the water out and down to a dangerous level. Without thinking he dove, broke his neck, was instantly paralyzed, and floated between life and death. Drowning would have been merciful. Instead, a friend pulled him out of the water. Twenty-five years later I would have my own cataclysm, and 5 years after that, Ramón would successfully convince his friends to assist his suicide. About eleven o'clock, on the evening of November 11th, 1993, eleven years to the day from my mother's suicide, I hovered between life and death on the side of a mountain in Colorado. And the only thought running through my mind, as I listened to gasoline trickling from the carburetor of my flattened pick-up truck was, "I've got to get out of here. My kids need me." The firefighters' jaws-of-life extricated me, and a flight-for-life helicopter lifted me off the side of Schaeffer's Crossing, near Pine Junction . . .
I confess to reading other reviews of this highly praised and awarded film about a quadriplegic's request for euthanasia. (Oscars, Golden Globes, 52 wins and 26 other nominations). Otherwise, I might have missed the depth of stupidity in its detractors. Their lame reviews read like a plethora of Green Day clones with their enlightened and no doubt well thought out objective arguments. In other words, these reviews had the passionate scream of heavy electric rock but with whiny pubescent voices who actually believe their bullshit wisdom. Mar Adentro neither degrades the disabled, nor demeans their demand to die. Ramón Sampedro was much more generous with his opponents' points of view than I could ever be. Only the disabled who didn't approve of this movie have a bitch. The others are meaningless spit in the wind.
"When you can't escape, and you constantly rely on everyone else, you learn to cry by smiling, you know?" Was Sampedro's patience simply exhausted anger? His loving family's dedication to keeping him alive was demonstrated by their excellent care for him. Well-educated on Spinal Cord Injuries (SCI means both the condition and the afflicted) they never allowed him to succumb to the common complications leading to death: pressure sores, pneumonia, blood clots, cardiovascular diseases, and bowel or kidney failure. Before his accident, his father and brother made their living as fishermen, and Ramón himself had been a sailor-mechanic who traveled the world. They completely changed their lives, moving inland to a farm, in order to keep him alive. They needn't have bothered: he wanted to die.
Despite his condition, or perhaps because of it, five women loved Sampedro. (The film condenses them into only two characters.) They wanted him to live; but he couldn't make love with them, and that mattered to him. Finally though, it was the rare love of a few that enabled them to arrange his suicide. This was the only proof of love that Ramón demanded. They covertly organized a group, where each conspirator would complete a specific, necessary, but non-prosecutable act to help him die. And in return for their kindness he tells the government, "You can punish [the person helping me] if you want.. But you know that what you will simply be doing is seeking revenge when, in fact, I am the only person responsible for my actions." In support of his right to euthanasia, one thousand strangers purchased keys to his apartment as a gambit to frustrate the authorities. Spanish police tried to find out who was behind the camera of his video taped suicide, and who helped prepare the potassium cyanide, but eventually they gave up.
But for 30 years before his adieu, day in and day out, he wanted to die. They kept him alive like the maimed Grail Fisher King; and it was this very same affliction, the inability to make love with his body or to father children, that tormented him. Instead of a boat on a lake, Ramón lay in his bed, composing poetry with a pen that someone had to place in his mouth; looking out the window towards the distant sea; and occasionally catching its scent on the wind.
This reminds me of another legend, the one about Jesus. He had his harem too, platonic, we are told. We are also led to believe he was celibate and never fathered any children. Alternative history and apocryphal versions have it differently however, and that at least one woman became his consort or wife, Mary Magdalene. He may have had progeny. Perhaps the whole story has been stripped of its obvious connections with fertility rites of the calendar goddess to whom Jesus was sacrificed. What's relevant here is that he spent three hours on a cross. Ramón spent three decades enduring the nearly unendurable. You tell me who suffered more and who deserved the right to leave his devotees.
Joseph Campbell recounts an amazing legend from the Hindu Panchatantra about four Brahmins, four quills and the Terror-Joy Wheel crown. I see Sampedro as suffering and rejecting it, as savior of no one, not carrying the weight of the world, only a granite memorial to his own former self. His absurd agony was not a joy. All the love in the world directed towards him couldn't change how he felt about himself as a burden to be moved in space and time. He longed to be set free into Oblivion.
One of the film's most intimate scenes shows Ramón's habit of sharing a cigarette with a woman. Erotic and humorous (he hoped he might get lung cancer) the scene sadly portrays all that's left of his life, a few minutes that slightly approximate sensuality. To ease his pain I suppose he could've passed his days with alcohol and drugs, but I figure nobody could afford that. No, he wouldn't be taking Chogyam Trungpa's path to enlightenment. No opportunity for Sampedro to practice the Rinpoche's "crazy wisdom". Without orgasms that path might be very boring. Maybe Ramón's craving for death was crazy wisdom.
The focus of Mar Adentro is on his final years, surrounded by the family who loves him so very much and his devoted euthanasia advocates; so much a life affirming environment that I found myself wanting this man to live. Such a witty, handsome, intelligently vital, and yes, formerly robust man, initially evoked in me only a weak and grudging approval of his yearning for suicide. However, through occasional flashbacks to the life lost to him, the film poignantly makes his point.
The story is adapted from his memoir, Letters From Hell (not yet translated into English), documentaries, interviews with family and friends, and the videotape of his suicide. Isn't it ironic that if Ramón Sampedro had won his right to euthanasia, we might never know his story. The Sea Inside has a wonderfully eclectic soundtrack - modern and traditional Spanish songs, Wagner, Beethoven, Puccini's Nessun dorma, and Galician Celtic tunes. Alejandro Amenábar co-produced, directed, co-wrote the screenplay, wrote for and scored the soundtrack. I have nothing negative to say about this movie.
A Spanish quadriplegic priest tells Sampedro that freedom without a life isn't freedom, and he retorts, "A life without freedom is not a life." Ramón and his supporters appealed to the government of Spain, then a newly formed secular state. Another euthanasia advocate, Michael Schiavo, appealed to his supposedly secular government on behalf of his wife, Terri. Our country's political and religious leaders then zealously demonstrated how frightfully close we are to becoming a fascist, fundamentalist christian theocracy. Michael was thoroughly vilified.
Poor Terri Schiavo would have been appalled to know that her body was paraded in public, her dignity destroyed by her parents' love. She most certainly wouldn't have wanted that as her farewell, a 15-year spectacle. Terri died because of her vanity, her appetite to be thin and beautiful. Here too, we can admire her family's attentive care, but it was unnecessary. Terri's expressed wish to die should have been respected.
