Alejandro Amenábar
Mare Dentro

End-of-life, as it's now called. Euthanasia, assisted death. Certainly a more than relevant topic, worldwide. Technological progress has confronted us with dilemmas that were inconceivable just a few years ago. Moral dilemmas for which, in all probability, we will never find a definitive solution.

"The Sea Inside," a 2004 film by Alejandro Amenabar, tells the story of Ramon, a quadriplegic who asks for the possibility of dying to escape his agony, painless only in a physical sense. The story (based on true events) is entirely centered on this theme: from the beginning of the film, Ramon has already made his decision, and nothing can dissuade him from his aim. Rosa tries, visiting him and reminding him how life is beautiful, interesting, and worth living, causing Ramon further pain which manifests in an obvious outburst of anger. After the first visit, Rosa will return to see him, but she will no longer try to convince him not to request euthanasia and, at the end, becomes somewhat of the deus ex machina of the story.

As always, the Church also weighs in on the issue, through Father Francisco, who is also quadriplegic. In a completely tragicomic scene, Ramon from his upstairs room talks and has a verbal confrontation with the priest on the ground floor, who could not go up because his wheelchair didn't fit the narrow stairs. A tragicomic scene, as I said, because even if it initially makes one laugh, it reveals the representation of the enormous distance between two completely different views on the problem. There can be no common ground between those who argue that "a life that removes freedom is not life" (Ramon) and those who believe that "freedom that removes life is not freedom" (Father Francisco).

From the other characters in the story, it's possible to capture perhaps slightly hidden aspects of situations like that of the protagonist. The family members, for example. Each of them has a different way of relating to Ramon: his nephew Javier who secretly cares for him but tries not to show it, probably due to that sort of adolescent modesty that regards displays of affection as deplorable; his brother Jose, absolutely opposed to Ramon's euthanasia and who will fight until the end, not with the right attitude certainly, against his beloved brother's decision. And then the father, one of the film's most successful characters. He is an old father who suffers in silence, does not flinch, does not become angry, and accepts Ramon's decision. Yet he suffers because "there is only one thing worse for a father than seeing a child die, having a child who wants to die". "The Sea Inside" is also a feminine film, in addition to the already mentioned Rosa, the hugely important figure of the lawyer Julia, also suffering from a degenerative disease, who falls in love with Ramon but at the last moment refuses to kill him as she had promised. And then Manuela, Ramon's brother's wife, who patiently and with devotion takes care of him without ever letting it weigh on him. A human tragedy, sweet and melancholic, sad but not rhetorical, nor trivial. A tragedy of a man chained who wants to rise from his bed and fly.

I do not believe in the absolute sanctity of life. Not for an a priori anti-clerical position, but for reasons of a logical as well as moral nature. "Absolute" derives from the Latin "ab solutus" ("free from all"). In the 20th century, the theory of relativity was definitively established: everything is relative, nothing is absolute, not even the sanctity of life, then. Human society has evolved, and those who do not adapt fall into anachronism. But it is not for blind love of progress that euthanasia is supported, but for an inevitable mental journey of man. The human mentality changes, what was wrong in the past is now right and vice versa. It is not a decay of manners. It is not even a loss of values, not in all cases anyway. It is an unstoppable change which it is foolish to oppose because it is anti-human, it is inhuman. Euthanasia must be legalized, within certain limits of course, because society demands it; it is man himself.