Suicide elicits a smile

by Junius

If you saw Barbarian Invasion last year, you might think that that's a reason for giving The Sea Inside a pass, but I wouldn't agree. The differences are immense: the one doesn't obliterate the other, and it would be sad if the similarity of subject matter stopped you from seeing a more beautiful film.

But let's face it, Barbarian Invasion was a lark and the assisted death in it was almost an afterthought in order that the film could end before it got too dismal. In The Sea Inside , suicide is the main issue. It is an issue film, and we don't laugh so much.

We do, however, smile, and not uncomfortably. For two reasons: the family and the visitors are all absolutely true to themselves. Such accuracy is very relaxing. And more relaxing still, the man who is at the center of their concerns is extremely attractive. Not in the raunchy way of Barbarian Invasion , which made one laugh at the way the lady's man faced his predicament and at the madcap solutions found for various problems. Rather, the quadriplegic in The Sea Inside has a calm, clear-thinking attitude to himself and the lives that impinge on his. He is a truly attractive man, someone to learn from.

A vet, a good friend, responded to a request of mine by giving me a vial of liquid, some kind of barbiturate that is used for putting down animals. “You won't need it all,” he said. “Just put it in a drink of your favorite Seagrams.” I wanted to be sure I could get out of life if I really needed to.

I kept it for several years, then another friend was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Sitting on a bench at Kits Beach, watching people jogging, biking and playing in the sea, with the shapes of ships in the bay and West Vancouver in the distance and Mount Garibaldi far away nearest to heaven, I gave the vial to him. In the end he did not, I assume, use it. He was very well attended to, and undoubtedly received the proven palliative easement. Though in a funny way I had thought of it as a loan, I can't bring myself to ask his widow if there's a little bottle marked “poison” hanging around.

But I'm thinking now that the only time I'd get to using it would be too late. I wouldn't be able to lift it to my lips or get it swallowed. The man in the film was an extreme case, but we all can reckon we will have need of assistance in the end, unless we are lucky enough to die in sleep, having stayed healthy until the last day.

This line of argument suggests that maybe one should do a farewell before it becomes a complicated crisis. I don't know. Though, logically, suicide should not be such a shattering matter since after, say, fifty-five, most of us would probably prefer to see what cards are in the stack as we lay them out every day, even if pain and reduced mobility are in those cards. Some of them may be picture cards, and some of them will have a smile to them, as in this film.

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