When I walked out of the theater after watching this movie, I suddenly wanted to call my parents and talk to them about the death of my grandfather and grandfather, about what they wanted me to do if they encountered the situation in the movie, and about the different attitudes towards death in terms of things. Unfortunately, it was too late, and they should have already rested, so they gave up the idea and wrote this tweet. The film made me realize that the fact that "parents are a curtain between us and death" may not be felt as deeply in any country in the world as in China.
Except for the children in China who were taken to the funeral by their parents when they were ignorant, most of them never faced the death and funeral of their grandparents and grandparents, and when they learned of the death of the elderly, usually things have passed a long time. Because parents feel that the elderly are old, it is inevitable to leave, and the children still have a long life and cannot delay their studies or work. So, for children, grandparents are people who disappear out of thin air, and when one day they want to talk to them very strongly, videos, parents tell you lightly: "He/she is no longer there, you were busy at that time/ afraid that you would be sad, so they did not notify you." "It's as if if it's been a long time before the adults are sad anymore, and the children won't be sad anymore."
Don't Tell Her, the film takes something that is very, very common in Chinese families as an entry point to explore the different attitudes towards death in Eastern and Western cultures. This entry point is when the old man in the family has a serious illness and the time is running out, whether it is time to tell her the truth, let her fully fulfill her dying wishes, and try to bid farewell to the world without regrets; or hide the truth and whitewash the peace, avoid the old man's worry and anxiety, and let her walk through the last time calmly. The choice of the film is also the choice of most Chinese families, that is, to hide the truth, try to reunite the whole family together, and accompany the elderly to spend their last days.
Grandma's two sons settled abroad more than twenty years ago, the eldest son is in Japan, the second son is in the United States, and the grandmother who stays at home has been caring for her sister and her sister's children. During a physical examination, grandma found that the cancer was advanced, the doctor diagnosed that there were only three months left in life, and the sons, daughters-in-law, grandchildren, and granddaughters who received the news decided to return to China to visit grandma, and the last family reunion. In order to make the whole family's return to China seem reasonable, they plan to hold a wedding for the eldest grandson and their girlfriend who has known each other for three months, and return home in the name of the wedding.
After the film won the best actress in a comedy at the Golden Globe Awards, it was very hot by various public accounts, but the domestic delay in releasing it satisfied the audience's appetite and raised the expectations of the film. After really going to the theater to see the whole film, personal feelings are actually not as godly as the major public accounts, although they have been under the banner of exploring the cultural differences between the East and the West, in fact, the part about the cultural differences between the East and the West is very thin, but it is very true for Chinese culture, especially some cultures in the northeast region.
Grandma practiced "hey ha" in the morning, Billie walked out of the airport to collect the taxi driver, the noisy and festive wedding ceremony that combined Chinese and Western, the small abacus about the sacrifice when worshipping Grandpa, and the secret you and me between relatives at the dinner table, patting the taxi door when sending off and not willing to let go, looking really familiar and funny and tear-inducing. At the end of the film, Grandma is still alive and healthy six years after her diagnosis, and can run and jump. Until the end, I did not understand how we should face the imminent death and the imminent death of our loved ones, for myself, I hope that like Mr. Sunada in "Deathbed Notes", I can calmly complete my dying wishes, arrange farewell ceremonies, funerals and other matters, and personally draw a conclusion to my life. However, for parents, perhaps it is not necessarily wrong to hide it.