Ricci's character deals with this a lot better than I would. |
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Recently, Death has caught up to me. For the majority of my small life Luck, Karma or God - whomever you choose to believe in - has always been on my side in the matter. I've been quite sheltered from the possibilities of friends or family losing their lives and have been blissfully living mine at the jolly fast pace that most of us members of mankind live.
But, as they say, all good things come to an end and this ignorance has been shattered, leaving me in complete and reluctant acceptance that I, and everyone around me, shall all end in this one true fate.
One of the first things I've realized in this reluctant self-discovery is that, on the whole, we already know that we're going to die. We know that everyone is going to die. But until someone does pass away, do we actually realize it?
And then also - what exactly happens to us when we die?
Movies, as the ever-evolving picture screen of our thoughts on life, have much to say about death as well. Film is a motion picture expansion of our ideas, theories, and ultimately our hopes.
Such as the hope for life after death.
A very popular movie theme in the suspense genre is the E.S.P. theory - extra-sensory perception. Described by wikipedia.com as "the purported ability to acquire information by paranormal means independent of any known physical senses or deduction from previous experience," one of the branches of E.S.P. (and especially in the movie world) is the ability of a living person to 
I'd want to get high too if these guys followed me around... |
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see the dead walking the Earth.
This theme was made very popular in M. Night Shyamalan's film THE SIXTH SENSE where Cole Sear, played by a young Haley Joel Osment, is tormented by grotesque ghosts preserved in the condition of their death. With the help of Bruce Willis' character, the child psychologist Malcolm Crowe, Sear comes to realize that the spirits that follow him are only looking for his help.
Another movie that has been compared to the ideas of THE SIXTH SENSE is the television film THE SIGHT, one of my personal favorites. First shown in 2000, this film is about architect Michael Lewis and a fateful trip to London, England, where he discovers that he can see the dead. He is led to England by a dying woman with the same abilities in order to help twelve ghostly victims of London's newest serial killer. After the old woman passes on, Lewis "inherits" the ghosts and enlists their help to stop what turns out to be a copycat killer of an early murderer. The ghosts in THE SIGHT remain in the clothes they died in, and when Lewis touches them, he can see their past.
Another life-after-death theme explored by the movies is that when a person dies, his or her ghost is stuck to one's home or place of death, sometimes due to unfinished business but sometimes not. In 1988's BEETLE JUICE, directed by Tim Burton, a happy couple played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis are trapped in their New England house for eternity. In this scenario it is the duty of the 
Williams' character sees heaven as his wife's paintings. |
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un-living to haunt the living. Any realism ends there, however - the film continues on about the crazy, cartoon-esque peskiness of fellow ghost Beetlejuice.
CASPER, the 1995 family flick based on a 1939 children's storybook (which was later made famous by the Paramount Pictures' cartoon and Harvey comics,) tells the story about a young boy who dies and is stuck in his family mansion along with his three "fleshie-" hating ghostly uncles. The movie suggests that ghosts who finish unfinished business move on, as the antagonist of the film crosses over when she finally discovers Casper's treasure. There is no transition for Casper and his uncles, however, and they remain in the mansion with newfound friends Bill Pullman and Christina Ricci's characters.
In the somewhat romantic comedy HEART AND SOULS, Robert Downey Jr. plays a man who is tied to four spirits due to their deaths happening at the moment of his birth. Unable to leave the life of young Thomas, the ghosts disappear from his sight until he is older. Like in CASPER, they discover that if Downey's character helps them finish their unfinished business, they will move on to the next world.
Not all cinematic visions of the afterlife include Earth-bound spirits. In the beautiful drama WHAT DREAMS MAY COME, Robin Williams portrays a doctor who loses his two children in a car accident. Four years afterwards, he also passes on and must deal with being away from, his soul mate, his wife. In this film, 
My own personal Hell. |
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heaven is what you make it and it can be as glorious or as damper as your imagination wills it to be. But when Williams' character Chris Nielsen discovers that his wife has killed herself, he must break all ties that his mind may have in order to retrieve her from a separate, suicidal hell.
Like WHAT DREAMS MAY COME's afterlife, the art of film is only as limited as our imaginations. These and so many other movies explore our hopes of life after death, and paint a picture of our fears and doubts at what lies beyond.
There are so many possibilities about existence after our time in this world ends. Is there an Earthly afterlife, where you are bound to only one area or left to exist in the clothes that you die in? Or is there a heaven, with fluffy clouds or made from the most beautiful painting you've ever seen, that waits for you? Is Hell the fiery, tormenting underworld that some religions suggest? Or perhaps the real torment is dying before rectifying your sins.
It's nearly impossible to say that we'll ever find the truth about death, or about life after death, until it is our time. Sometimes, deciding what you believe about the afterlife makes living this one a whole lot easier.
With this very brief overview of some of the movies that remind me about the questions life and death, I've opened your eyes to some possibilities.
Now it's time to find your truth on your own.
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The new, the old and the ugly of film through the perspective of realism, fanaticism or just plain late-night insomnia… ism.
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| Amanda Knoss |
If there's something Amanda can't commit to, it's a single taste in films. She believes that Walmart, Starbucks and a certain super-power government are going to clan together to take over the world. Either that, or she's over-caffeinated again.
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