Awakenings

This was an old movie base on a true story. It was played by two excellent actors, Robert De Niro (played Leonard) and Robin William (played Dr Sayer). The movie resembled a group of patients who had affected by encephalitis lethargica pandemic which spread throughout the world between 1917 to 1928. Encephalitis lethargica is a disease characterized by high fever, headache, double vision, delayed physical and mental response, and lethargy. In acute cases, patients may enter coma. In the movie, the patients with encephalitis lethargica fell into deep sleep for more than 20 years, never had been awaken. Doctors in general saw those person as bodies without spirits. However, there was an atypical doctor believing that the spirits were still living inside these bodies and desiring to be awaken. He refused to give up on the consciousness and humanity of his patients. I really like the quote by Dr. Sayer, "borrowing the will of the balls" to describe his patients' responses to some sort of stimulus. With his endless searching for a mirable for his patients, he discovered L-Dopa ( a drug developed for Parkinson's disease ) as the answer for this terrible sleeping sickness. His patients woke up one after another.

After awakening, one of the patients, Leonard, found that the world changed to so negative comparing to the world he used to know. He wanted to "tell them" that they "got it all wrong", "remind them that life is good" and that "people have forgotten what it means to be alive". He pointed out that those who consider themselves to be healthy live actually in a deep coma and are victims of their self made social hypnosis. Although he had a biological impaired body (since he was dependent upon the drug), he seemed to be more alive than anyone else.

Unfortunately, the drug ceased its effect eventually and all patients went back to they catatonic state. Adjusting to the realities of miracles, some people thought that, "it was the drug that failed", or "the illness itself that returned", or "the patients unable to cope losing decades of their lives". The temporary miracle proved that, "the reality is we don't know what went wrong more than we know what went right". No matter what it really was, the temporary rebirth of these patients taught us that the human spirit is more power than any drug and that is what needs to be nourished. Work, play, friendship, family, these are the things that matter, these are what we've forgetten, the simplest things.

Afterall, we all concern about maintaining a health state because we don't want to see our biological body wearing out. However, with the inspiration after watching this movie, I wonder how good it is to have a body without a spirit?