There was complete silence ahead, and the sound of the engine could be faintly heard.
Closer, closer.
First a slender grass stalk was thrown into view and flew out, followed by more. In an instant, the eyes are filled with them: long or short grass stalks, and the dust raised by the way; mixed and flying all over the sky. Many of those grass stems are half withered yellow, but there is no lack of soft green. The machines underfoot roared, and the sharp blades easily took away thousands of lives, leaving them in the darkness of childhood memories.
This is the beginning of the movie Third Star, and it is also the story that this niche literary film wants to tell: when a young life predicts the time to date death.
James is 29 years old and will not live to be 30 years old. Cancer hit him, relatives took on the tragedy, and friends took him to Ballafonte Bay to fulfill his wish. His illness and the side effects of his medications made the journey even more difficult. Filled with morphine, dragged his body, after many adventures and quarrels, and seeing many fragile beauty, he drowned in the blurry sea as he wished.
Why does this movie with a really naive approach and a partially inexplicable plot move us so much? After many days of precipitation, I found the answer.
Does everyone have that moment, as James did, when you realize you're never going to be the first man on the moon, or that your national team may never play a World Cup final. For James, but as he grasped and stroked a tuft of straw, he realized that what was in his hand - life, would never be his for the foreseeable future. Is he sad? Is he in pain? it goes without saying. Even though he knew the regret of wasting time, he would still be willing to exchange with any rotting person, living their young but dying life. But he can't, it's an arranged thing. That's when his courage showed.
A cancer patient, if he is terminally ill, can take countless drugs to relieve pain, and spend his last time in a daze under the service and company of others. He could not accept the pain, suffer a little less, and die unconsciously at home or in the hospital. But when you have to enter the arena, being dragged into it is different from walking in with your head held high. James, despite his weakness, chose to be a warrior. He wanted to finish one thing with his own hands, to experience it all, to feel, to feel his struggle, even the pain of sea water entering his lungs. Dying with dignity and choice is a gesture that testifies to the vividness of his life.
Tagore's "Life is as Gorgeous as Summer Flowers" sums up people's pity and yearning for the fleeting beauty. But life is not a movie, and we rarely have James' misfortune and good fortune. When he is gone, we still have to aim at the third star in the sky and go down hard. Don't waste your life, don't follow the script everyone has written for you; discover what you really aspire to.
Raise a glass of morphine and toast everyone. To James, and to all those walking towards the third star, us.
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