#011 Grace Is Gone (2007)

"It is painful to lose something or someone you love deeply about."

       By the film title itself, I thought it was a movie about forgiveness as "Grace is gone". However it was a movie about grief for death. Stanley Philips, a father with two daughters, Heidi and Dawn, received the news about his wife's death, Grace, who serves in the military. Stanley himself is not prepare for the news and take a certain of period to tell his daughters.

       Just right after the next day of the movie, I received the news about my aunt's death. It is hard for me to handle two people I love and care left within a year, it is way harder for my uncle to handle losing a son and wife within a year. Leaving my uncle and a 9-years-old cousin, I wonder how my uncle tells him about the death of the mother.

       Elisabeth Kubler-Ross proposed the Five Stages of Grief in 1969 (Smith & Segal, 2016) which initially explained patients' feeling toward terminal illness, however later is generalized to other negative events and losses, for example relationship break-up and death.

Stage 1: Denial
"This is not true." "This cannot happen to me."
We tend to ignore what is undesirable to us, same goes to the news that we are not expected and ready for that. In the movie, Stanley denies to accept the fact that his wife had gone when two officers visit to his house and inform him about his wife death. He just cannot believe and repeat his question to ask the officers about his wife. He felt lost and does not know what to do but keep himself and her daughters out of the house first and do something unusual to hide his emotion. Very quickly, Stanley's emotion moved to the next stage.

Stage 2: Anger
"Why is this happening?" "Who's fault to blame?"
Although Stanley tries to keep his emotion under controlled, there are few scenes show Stanley lose his temper: when he meets with his brother while stop by at his mother's house, when the brother knew about Grace's death and the children are yet to know.

Stage 3: Bargain
"If I had a chance to.... in return I will...."
I believed Stanley has much regret for things that are too late to do, for example to apologise to his wife for the last argument. Stanley makes a phone call back to his own house telephone to hear Grace's voice on the recorder, and express his regrets, lost of direction and grief. From the way he talks to the phone, he hopes that it was him being deployed instead of Grace. I could feel how much Stanley wishes "if things do not happen, I would....." and I am sure he is willing to pay anything just wanting his wife come back alive.

Stage 4: Depression
"I am too sad to do anything."
Stanley shows low interest to do anything when he comes across this stage. But because he does not want his daughters to know about their mother's death, he tried to keep himself doing many things that he does not really interested. Whenever the children are safe with other people such as having lunch with their uncle, or when the children are having fun in the swimming pool, Stanley just wants to rest and sleep, and sometimes he needs a quiet time away from his daughters. Losing a loved one makes him find no meaning to do anything. Solely because he understands that the daughters still need him, therefore he tries to engage in activities with his daughters

Stage 5: Acceptance
"I am fine with what happened."
After bringing the daughters to Enchanted Gardens, Stanley gradually accept the truth, got healed inside his heart and recovered from the grief of lost. He makes sure that himself is string enough when he tells his daughters about their mother's death so that he can be their support.

Grieving can be painful, but it allows human to recovered from the lost. It is ok to be not ok, sometimes. We need to allow our emotions have a better way to be expressed. Learning about this was quite helpful for me to comfort my uncle and cousin, also myself to accept the fact that my aunt has left us. As we know, we still need to stay strong and live our life even after someone has left before us.






References
Smith, M. & Segal, J. (2016). Coping with grief and loss. Retrieved from http://www.helpguide.org/articles/grief-loss/coping-with-grief-and-loss.htm

#010 Sybil (1976)

       Always "wake up" from blackouts at different places, time and dates, Sybil is a young lady who did not aware that she had develop Dissociative Identity Disorder (also known as Multiple Personality Disorder). Not even her psychiatry, Dr Wilbur, who only learn about Sybil's mental disorder after few incidents and observations. As going through treatment sessions with Dr Wilbur, Sybil's other personalities such as confident and elegant Vickie, gloomy and suicidal Marcia, sociable and talented Vanessa, insecure and childish Peggy, and others slowly revealed at different time and situation, and they all met Dr Wilbur "individually". All of them know each other including Sybil, but Sybil never know anyone of them until Dr Wilbur disclosed and explained about her condition.

       Development of Dissociative Identity Disorder is believed due to traumatic events, experiences and memories which trigger a defense-mechanism, another personality in this case, to protect one self from certain stressful situations (National Alliance on Mental Illness, n.d.). It is an involuntary escape from reality with disconnection of thoughts, memory, consciousness and identity. Sybil was physically, mentally and sexually abused by her mother when she was small. With such growing experiences, she repressed her memories, also restricted her ability to be a better person, such as her hidden music talent and positive traits, but rather being a shy, decent and low self-esteem girl without questioning why. Whenever she feels threaten, the personalities of Peggy will show up and act childishly; when she meets her crush neighbour, the outgoing Vanessa will reveal; when she has no idea what to do in certain situation, the wise and smart Vickie will appear and help; when she remembers something traumatic, the suicidal Marcia will tend to show up and kill herself. There are many other personalities within Sybil, and as she learns about her mental illness and deny, other personalities tend to grow stronger and make Sybil's life more difficult. In order to recover from it, Sybil goes through medication and psychotherapy. It only shows improvement after Sybil recognize her root problem and persists to confront them.

       Another interesting yet impact take-away-message from this movie, was the interaction between Dr Wilbur and Sybil. All things that had done by Dr Wilbur brought me to think about the ethics in Psychology and being a therapist. Dr Wilbur shows unconditional love to Sybil and all of her alter identities in order to help Sybil recover from Dissociative Identity Disorder, which demonstrate Carl Roger's Person-Centered therapy (Sommers-Flanagan &  Sommers-Flanagan, 2012). Dr Wilbur works hard to balance between ethical dilemmas and the interests of Sybil. For example, Dr Wilbur spoke to her mentor or colleague about Sybil, and being advised that treat those identities "individually". Dr Wilbur learns and realizes not to push too hard to Sybil when she turned into an infant when Dr Wilbur tried to disclose everything to Sybil before Sybil is ready for that. Dr Wilbur even cross the boundaries to stay as friend to Sybil and always standby for her in case of any emergency. Lastly, Dr Wilbur committed and dedicated to stay with Sybil until she recovered. To me, it is a hard decision for a therapist to make such decision and commitment to a patient for so many years.

       The film ends well with a hope for people that with proper psychotherapy, medication, social support and positive therapeutic relationship between therapist and client, mental illness can be manageable and even be cured. 

References

National Alliance on Mental Illness. (n.d.). Dissociative Disorders. Retrieved from https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Dissociative-Disorders

Sommers-Flanagan, J. &  Sommers-Flanagan, R. (2012). Counseling and psychotherapy theories in context and practice: Skills, strategies, and techniques (2nd ed.). 

Pictures from Google

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#009 The Sixth Sense (1999)

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” 

― H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature      

       Fear is one of the emotion that universally shared by all living beings. We, as human, are afraid of things either real or imaginary, perhaps because our brain and mind have the capacity to imagine things in relation to fear. This involves the unknown and unexpected consequences that may relate to dangers and undesirable outcome (Cao, Han, Hirshleifer & Zhang, 2009). By playing with emotion to elicit fear, "The Sixth Sense" presents the idea of human's fear to the unknown and uncertainty with "things we can't see" and associated it with music, loud sound, sudden incident in most unexpected scenes.

       The story line and the way how the actors present the emotion of fear connects and leads the emotion of the audience. Dr Malcolm is a child psychologist who dedicated to help his 9 years old patient, Cole, as he thinks that Cole is suffering delusions. The audience first could not understand what Cole is facing but he seems really afraid of something, first elicit fear of unknown among the audience in Cole's situation.

When Cole's expression started to change.
Deep down in my heart: Oh child, what the h*** had happened to you!
Did those ugly scary "thing" look at you straight to your eyes like that?!
*started to imagine potential scary scene* 

       As the story goes by, the audience get the idea about Cole's ability to see dead people, how terrified of those ghosts appearance can be, they started to feel more and relate to Cole's fear. This involves the emotion connection between the audience and Cole. They can feel his helplessness and fear as a little child who has to face all the "scary things" when no one would believe and feel as the same as he did. The fear of unknown still arises among the audience in this stage because the audience have no idea about what the ghost will do to this innocent child (ghost and demons are always perceived as unpredictable, negative and harmful to human being). Furthermore, associated with creepy background music or sudden loud noise, it evokes more fear because in human mind, that considered as an "unwanted sound" which indicates unknown, unexpected danger and undesirable consequences (Cao, Han, Hirshleifer & Zhang, 2009). Especially in the scene of Cole is locked in the wardrobe when no one knows what is happening inside but only hear Cole's fearful loud screaming.

However, after Cole made the decision and confronted his fear with Dr Malcolm's suggestion, the "truth" seems revealed and the ghosts did not appear as scary and unpredictable as in the beginning of the film. For example, a scene when Cole talks to a ghost behind the stage and a ghost of road accident standing beside Cole, it created a shock for a moment instead of fear.

See the fear and helplessness in Cole's eyes

The colour tone also play important role in elicit fears in film production. The colour tone used in the film is darker and dimmer, essentially present the gloomy feeling in the entire movie. Brighter colour tone is more likely to be presented when there is no scary involved, such as the scenes about Malcolm and Anna, Malcolm walking down the street with Cole, Malcolm's casual conversation with Cole and almost at the end of the film.

       According to Schachter-Singer Theory, human experience emotion by interpreting bodily response consistent with the situation at certain moment (Schachter & Singer, 1962). As the audience is expected to watch a horror movie, schemas in their mind prepared them to feel the emotion of fear, so the bodily response is interpreted according to this situation. For example, my heart beat increases when I watch this movie can be interpreted as fear, but it would be totally different than fear if my heart beat increases when I am expecting a romantic date.

       Another interesting theory that explains why people like to watch horror movie despite knowing that it is scary. Opponent- Process Theory suggested that human experience of emotion disrupts body state of balance and emotions have their opposing counter parts (Solomon & Corbit, 1974). For example, the opposite of happy is sad, the opposite fear is relief. Human might feel the fear before jumping off the ledge in Bungee Jump, but feel sense of relief after jumping off. So, it can be used to explain the audience like the pleasant feeling of relief and "know the truth" after experiencing fear by watching horror movie.






References
Cao, H. H., Han, B., Hirshleifer, D, & Zhang, H. H. (2009). Fear of the unknown: Familiarity and economic decisions. Review of Finance 2011(15), 173–206. doi: 10.1093/rof/rfp023

Schachter, S. & Singer, J. E. (1962). Cognitive, social and physiological determinants of emotional sate. Psychological Review, 69, 379-399.

Solomon, R. L. & Corbit, J. D. (1974). An opponent-process theory of motivation: I. Temporal dynamics of affect. Psychology Review, 81, 119-145.



Pictures from Google
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#008 Whale Rider (2002)

"My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs stretching all the way back to the Whale Rider. I'm not a prophet, but I know that our people will keep going forward, all together, with all of our strength."

       This is the last line of "Whale Rider" before it ends. Paikea as a Maori girl from the tribe of the Whale Rider, struggles in living out her calling as a leader in a patriarchal society, where males such as fathers or authorities with father-figures have the power and structural control over legal, economic, political as well as religious institutions (Glick & Fiske, 1997). Most of the time, the titles and the property are inherited by the male lineage (Glick & Fiske, 1997). As a eldest son, Paikea's father refused to carry the traditional leadership and he left Paikea to his father, went to other country and be what he is passionate for. As a Chinese saying: blood is thicker than water, although from the born of Paikea and the death of twins brother, the grandfather did not like her at the beginning as he is waiting for a male leader from his family to be raised as a leader, but the affectionate bond is still developed after years of being together with this granddaughter.

       As Paikea wants to live the calling as a leader and she is qualified to be the leader, but it always turn down by her grandfather simply because the leadership was reserved to males and she is a girl. The sexism occurs here showed a type of prejudice and bias about one gender is being superior than another gender, which may also lead to discrimination (Myers, 2010). The grandfather forbids Paikea from learning Taiaha and stepping into the cultural school shows the discrimination. Another interesting fact found in the film was even the second child is a male, he is still not a candidate to be chosen as a leader simply because the birth order, as the leader is supposed to be chosen from the eldest son. Uncle Rawiri, Paikea's uncle, the second son in the family was good in playing Taiaha and wanted to take over the leadership that his elder brother aborted, but the father turned down this heart of willingness too. This poor little girl striving hard to prove herself until she almost pays her life up, and finally her grandfather puts away the stubbornness and stagnation to declare Paikea's leadership.

       I feel lucky enough for never experience such prejudice and discrimination from my family, however sometimes I feel overwhelmed due to the attention that focuses on me. My father is the eldest son in the family and I have one uncle who does not married. I am the only daughter of my father, therefore the only grandchild who carries the family name. Most of the time, my father would put the pressure on me emphasizing that "because you are the Lee's (family name)" therefore I should behave in certain ways. He does not emphasize this on my achievements but he values the traditions such as must be home during important festivals. If I happened to have other plans on the important festival, he might get mad on me. Furthermore, I tend to achieve higher standards in my life because I have this sense of "I am the hope of the Lee's". Although it brings burden and more responsibilities to the status and identity, but it is definitely my blessing and honor to be superior in my family.

References

Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (1997). Hostile and benevolent sexism measuring ambivalent sexist attitudes toward women. Psychology of Women Quarterly,21(1), 119-135. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1997.tb00104.x

Myers, D. G. (2010). Social Psychology (11th ed.). United States, US: McGraw Hill.

Pictures from Google

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