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cozycats5
Reviews
Wit (2001)
The Need to Confront our Death
The movie paints a vivid picture of a hospital where confronting a patient's death is second to experiments.
Vivian is an 'experiment' dying alone. I can still recall the relief on the face of my mother when I brought up her imminent death. She was afraid of making ME fearful. I was privileged to share my mother's dying. She shared moments of regret, painful happenings and joyful events. It was one of the best things I have done as a human being.
Vivian is clearly relieved to 'know the score' when Susie tells her that medicine will not save her. Susie gives the dying Vivian, medicine of compassion. She touches her and thereby acknowledges her as a human being.
Enter the professor who leads Vivian to the moment of death. There is no need for intellectual poetry or sparring. Instead, the professor lies on the death bed holding and supporting her friend. Tears fall from Vivian's eyes, the professor merely confirms the difficulty. The children's story is read and the professor offers her opinion - It is an allegory of a soul. We do not know if Vivian supports this statement. We only know that she dies with the knowledge that she is loved.
"Out of the mouth of babes," is a scriptural quote that confirms the wit of simplicity. I, personally, needed the bunny story. However, many children's stories have incisive clues to live's mysteries.
I am puzzled about the negative comments. Have any of these writers witnessed dying? Why do so many people negate the virtues of kindness, sympathy, touch, love, etc with weakness or by a wave of his/her hand dismiss it as 'boring.' This was not a boring movie. If you saw it this way, you missed the point. Come back, say 10-20 years from now and review it again.