The linguistics professor who was in the prime of his life was diagnosed with hereditary Alzheimer's disease, which is an irresistible disease. What she has to face is not only the loss of memory, but also the forgetting of herself. At first, it was forgotten words, and later it was the application of words and language. This has been a great blow to her who is studying linguistics. The knowledge she has learned, understood, written, and even taught in her life is gradually disappearing in her head. It's not an instant forgetting, it's a slow but irregular degradation that makes people uncomfortable. You confessed your fate when you lost what you cherished without knowing it. You can blame it on your inability to prepare; but like the heroine who knows that she faces loss every day but can't do anything, wouldn't it be more sad? And this patient is someone who has faith in language and communication. She will face memory degradation and forgetting. What makes her fear is not simply loss, because she has predicted that she will not know what "loss" means. The meaning of "lost" itself lies in "have it once." Since she no longer remembers what she had, then she doesn't even have the ability to "lost" it. The people you loved, the objects you held in your hands, your children, and even yourself, will disappear from yourself, leaving no trace. In the end, it is not oneself who experiences the "lost" but the people around him.
A speech by the heroine in the Alzheimer's Association is of course the focus of the whole play. "At this moment, I am alive." The most important thing is the next sentence: "I know I am alive." Knowing clearly how rare it is for people with Alzheimer's disease to live. She knows the current survival, but helplessly, she is certain that this moment will be completely forgotten. She claimed that she did not feel suffering, but was struggling and struggling to truly live, at least to be able to contact herself. Is a person alive if he can't even contact himself?
As I said at the beginning, there are many stories about memory regression or even loss, but only this one can move me. Probably because the focus of the story is on the patient itself, unlike other commercial movies that add love or other stories designed to evoke tears. For example, the favorite set of The Notebook ten years ago is generally about the heroine with amnesia but a love story is added. Of course, the story is strong but this distracts the focus. The plot of Still Alice is simple but focuses on the interpretation of personal emotions and the dialogue between people, which feels real. What impressed me most was the dialogue between the heroine and her daughter. The young girl directly asked, "What is it like (amnesia)?" A simple dialogue is enough to create a feeling of care, worry, and heartache. The atmosphere kept rippling in the movie until the end of the scene where the young girl hugged her mother slowly faded.
The simpler the plot, the more test the director's skill, the smarter he chose to tell the story in a straightforward manner, which is often not widely used but is the best way to lead the audience into the drama. The director's shooting skills give people a feeling of being the first person, which drives the audience to engage in the role, just like empathy. The heroine's acting skills can no longer be simply described as "good", it is her curse-like magic that grabs my heart. She does not cry, but she cries convulsively.
Tears are my gift to the director, and also a high respect for the film.
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