#RememberingRobinWilliams: Awakenings

Who are the dead? Who are the living? There are people who live life to be happy and to share happiness. There are people who live to earn a living and feed their families at least three times a day. But there are some people who live in a vacuum--people whose lives are trapped in their own bodies--"living statues".

I was devastated when I couldn't find my CD of my favorite Robin Williams CD "What Dreams May Come", which was shared to me by my mentor Ms. Josephine Bonsol, and decided to borrow it in Video City. Instead I found the movie "Awakenings" (1990, directed by Penny Marshall) and I remember my class in English 11 where we analyzed one of Dr. Sayer's narrative on people with the "Sleeping Sickness". I cried a bucket of tears after watching the movie.

"What is it being like them? What are they thinking?" The epic and most dramatic movie of Robin Williams revolves around a new and socially-awkward doctor Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) who discovered the long-lost encephalitic patients who have been in a catatonic condition at most 40 years. He was trying to uncover the reasons and possibilities behind the mental illness and found out that even though they always seem to be catatonic and to be "living statues", they have this unique reflexes which can be manifested through the will of another person.

After evaluating patients with histories of Parkinsons' Disease and encephalitic conditions, Dr. Sayer was able to make a circle of group whom he would help to possibly recover from their basic state of mind--that is, he would help them bring back to the world after forty or more years. One of his patients, Leonard Lowe (Robert de Niro) was also catatonic after 30 years and Dr. Sayer began to run tests on the drug combinations for anti-Parkinsons and encephalitic medications to possibly see the light behind the empty eyes of his patients. At first, it worked well with Leonard after a small dosage and was able to communicate with others and write his name. After the successful experiments, he tried it to his other patients and yielded the same positive results. One of his patients, Lucy, was able to communicate again and talk to other people. It was a miracle at the time because the disease had been ignored for almost 50 years.

The conflict began when Leonard started to show signs of aggressiveness and paranoia and Parkinsons' disease--that is, the drug had its own side effects and may only last for a brief period of time. Despite this, the best times of the catatonic patients with the ever-patient Dr. Sayer had been the most memorable for both sides. Based on a true story by Oliver Sacks the story truly touches the heart of the people and reflects a win-win situation--Dr. Sayer was able to temporarily revive the patients and bring them back to the world that they know, while the patients taught him to have fun and interact and communicate with more people.

I will never forget how me and my twin sister and my dad laughed at the scene when Dr. Sayer was examining a woman patient and when he showed her his pen for the evaluation she began to be manically hysterical. I also cried when Leonard finally embraced her mom and called out her name after 30 years. I am deeply moved by the story because I can relate with the related mental illnesses that I am currently fighting as well. 

The theme of the movie is essentially about not giving up, the same theme in Robin Williams' 'What Dreams May Come'. Here are some of the unforgettable lines in the movie:

Memorable lines from Awakenings:

Dr. Sayer: His gaze is from the passing of bars so exhausted, that it doesn't hold a thing anymore. For him, it's as if there were thousands of bars and behind the thousands of bars no world. The sure stride of lithe, powerful steps, that around the smallest of circles turns, is like a dance of pure energy about a center, in which a great will stands numbed. Only occasionally, without a sound, do the covers of the eyes slide open-. An image rushes in, goes through the tensed silence of the frame- only to vanish, forever, in the heart.

Dr. Sayer: What I believe in is that these people are alive inside.

Dr. Sayer: I hope we'll bring him back to wherever he is. To the world.

Leonard Lowe: I'm Leonard Lowe. It has been explained to me that I've been away for quite some time now. I'm back. 

Dr. Sayer: They have to be reminded of the beauty of life, the simple things.

Leonard Lowe: I want to walk alone. I want to do the things that you people are taking for granted.

Dr. Sayer: Love is more powerful that the drug. That needs to be nourished. This is what we've forgotten.

We will always remember you, Robin Williams.

Movie review: What Dreams May Come "The tragic myth of heaven"

"It's not about understanding. It's about not giving up."

Just how do you spell "love"? Just how far would you go to prove it? For Chris Nielson (Robin Williams), it means choosing hell over heaven just  to be with his wife Annie (Annabella Sciorra). Literally.

I once thought dreams are simply blurred and distorted images made by our subconscious minds--meaningless, confusing and even nightmarish. I never thought it could be our heaven, because it's all in our minds after all.

What shook me to tears in Vincent Ward's What Dreams May Come (1998) was Chris's undying love for his wife. When he died, he was advised in heaven that his thoughts for her would fade away in time but he refused to let go and even searched for her in hell after she committed suicide, even if it means staying there with her.

The face of hell

Just how big is the commitment in such relationships? My mentor Ms. Josephine Bonsol once said love is not about feeling anymore for it only further breaks the connection with its subjective setbacks. Love does not require a single emotion, and you show your love because you simply want to. She said it's more of a decision while you give all the love even without saying it.

When Chris died, he still longed for his wife. Even if paradise was right in front of him, his paradise was still being with Annie, as he saw his heaven in one of her majestic paintings. He didn't listen to anybody and even risked losing his mind in hell just to bring back his wife. Maybe this is what soul mates--and true love--simply mean.

We would think how heroic it might be when one gives up his own heaven and takes a ship back to the one place we all pray to the holy ghost we would not fall into--hell. Out in the real world we all want to go to heaven because we simply hate suffering. But for Chris, suffering is part of life and he simply hates not being with his wife.

It took me to a lot of tears especially when Chris found his daughter Marie (Jessie Brooks Grant) in heaven disguised as a beautiful Asian woman named Leona (Rosalind Chao, The Joy Luck Club). The movie brought me to more tears when he finally discovered his son Ian (Josh Paddock) as he remembered "he would be with his son even in hell".

Ms. Josephine Bonsol was right: the movie was deeply touching as I cried over Chris's message to his wife, that he couldn't forgive himself because he once said "he couldn't join her" to insanity after their children died, as he tried to push all the pain he even distanced himself to "the woman he loves the most".

Sometimes when you win, you lose.

And sometimes when you lose, you win. What Dreams May Come is a story about not giving up, and a challenge for all of us to face and express what true love really means.