【Original Article】 Author: A Maverick Fish Picture: Network
"If you suddenly learned that your life was coming to an end, would you choose to tell your family?" When I was asked this question by a friend, I replied without thinking: "No" After I watched the movie "Don't Tell Her", I was even more determined in my inner answer.
"Don't Tell Her" is an excellent work by Chinese-American director Wang Ziyi who has won many awards. This movie is about a Chinese family whose grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, but the family chose to hide their grandmother, under the pretext of a wedding to let all the family go home to see the last side of the grandmother, but Billie, who grew up in New York, believes that knowing her illness is the grandmother's human rights, so in the Chinese family staged a chinese and Western cultural conflict, the game of Chinese and Western culture is not the theme I want to discuss with you today, in the details of the movie, in addition to exploring the cultural differences between the East and the West, more is to think about the life of family affection.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > a white lie about family members, just don't want the person you love the most to bear pain and fear</h1>
Each of us wants to hear the truth, and none of us wants to be the one who is hidden, but sometimes the truth is cruel and can even completely crush a person.
Anyone who knows the truth comes at a cost. In the film, the kind grandmother is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and her granddaughter Billy, who has lived in the United States for many years, is very sad when she learns about it. Dad told Billy not to tell Grandma the truth.
Billy, who has lived in the United States for a long time and has been impressed by the culture of human rights for many years, insists that she should tell her grandmother the truth because she has the right to know. So there was a long talk between father and daughter, and Western human rights ideas finally compromised on family affection.
There is a sentence in the movie that touched me very much: Don't tell Grandma the truth, it's for Grandma's good. Tell Grandma that she has the right to know, but this heavy news is all pressed on Grandma's body, and sometimes it is not a disease that weighs on a person, but the fear of death.
In real life, when many people learn that they have cancer, they have not waited for the onset of the disease, and their psychology has collapsed.
Last year, Grandpa was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer, everyone hid from him, saying that it was not a serious disease, and when I went to see him for a day in October, my mental state was very good, chopping wood to feed the horses, and the whole person laughed. We don't want Grandpa to bear the fear of learning about illness, if a person is inherently dead, I hope that all his memories before he die are happy.
The family's reluctance to let Grandma know about her situation is to transfer the pain of this cancer to the family, and the family will help Grandma bear it, preferring to bear the responsibility of not telling the truth, but also to give Grandma a relaxed mood and a happy old age.
Elizabeth Kübler Rose once proposed the "Five Stages of Grief," which are the five stages that people encounter when they learn that they are seriously ill and face major changes in their lives:
1. "Denial": "No, it's impossible!" "Haven't you always been fine?"
2) "Anger": "Why me?" It's not fair! "Who can I blame?"
3. "Bargaining": "Just let me live to see my son graduate." Please, give me a few more years! "If she can wake up, I'm willing to do anything."
4) "Depression": "Oh, why do you have to take care of these things?" I'm going to die anyway. "I don't want to live, what's the point of living?"
5. "Accept": "Okay! Since I can't change this, I'll prepare for the aftermath! ”
It is precisely because we have a premonition that once the truth is told, both the person herself and the people close to her may be hit hard, so we choose to keep silent. Life really needs white lies, not only to reduce the psychological burden of patients, but also to give the patient a spiritual pillar, although the family does not say anything, but the heart is known, because they all know, are for the good of each other, it is the love of the family will let them make this choice.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >2, Grandma's white lies, is to want to say goodbye to the family</h1>
In the movie, they never tell Grandma the truth about the illness. But does Grandma really know nothing about her sick body? In fact, in the movie, there are many details that hint at the fact that Grandma may know that she is ill:
For example, doubts about the term "benign shadow" invented by the family;
For the unknown anti-cancer drugs that his son brought back from Japan, disguised as "high-priced vitamins", he ate them without questioning;
Suddenly let the nanny aunt hide from everyone to get her own medical examination report;
Perhaps Grandma had long suspected that her family had concealed her illness, but she also tacitly did not poke it, choosing to knock on the side to find the truth. As a result, there is a situation where you hide from me and I hide from me -- on the surface it seems to be harmonious, but in fact, behind the scenes, there are different plans.
There is a scene in the movie: Grandma, as the head of the family, Grandma alone contracts the whole process of the grandson's wedding. Booking a hotel and haggling with the hotel manager, taking wedding photos to guide Sun Tzu Haohao, how to behave more intimately with her lover Miko, playing games with the juniors at the wedding banquet, and lovingly chatting with comrades-in-arms.
Grandma held such an earthy wedding, which was a gift from Grandma to Her Grandson Haohao in her own unique way, and it was also a blessing for his life.
This may also be Grandma at the end of her life, saying goodbye to her dearest person, death must come back, then we must also say goodbye and go again.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >3, behind the truth, lies, is the sentiment of family affection and the awe of life</h1>
Should family members tell cancer patients about their true condition? Is it to uphold the responsibility of her loved ones, or to let her enjoy her human rights? The director cleverly throws out the questions, but does not give answers, leaving the audience to make choices and give the film an open-ended ending.
But in the tidbits at the end of the film, it seems to give the story a heartwarming ending, "Grandma has been diagnosed with cancer for six years and is still alive." This miraculous ending may not happen to everyone who suffers from cancer, but the director still wants to bring hope for life to the audience.
Facing the life issues of relatives is a compulsory subject in everyone's life.
In addition to exploring the cultural differences between the East and the West, "Don't Tell Her" is more to convey to the audience a kind of thinking about family affection and life.
What is the meaning of life? The German philosopher Martin Heidegger said: "To live to death, when you are infinitely close to death, you can deeply appreciate the meaning of life." ”
When a person lives a carefree life and is in a happy mood, he will not think of death, but when he has been to the hospital and experienced the illness and life and death of the people around him, he will probably pay more attention to the value of life. In the face of life and death, any major event that is usually entangled has become a trivial matter.
For a person with cancer, informing the disease and concealing the disease are their own choices, there is no right or wrong, it depends on everyone's choice.
Zhuangzi said: "Life and death have a destiny, and the shape of the qi is changing." Heaven and earth are like giant chambers, and songs and cries are made of chases. ”
From birth to death, man is the only way to go, born with joy, and dying with sorrow. It is already an established fact from the moment of birth, and how to expand the finite life to the infinite width is a compulsory course in everyone's life.
Many people spend their lives looking for the meaning of life, or as gorgeous as flowers, or as ordinary as grass...
This life is really short, so short that before you can return to God, it has already passed.
There will always be many people in life, many stories, and many difficulties and heartaches, how to make your life more meaningful?
Probably to think about what you think, do what you do, or for your dreams, or for your family, or for money, cling to your original intention, live in the moment, fight hard for the struggle you pursue, work hard, no matter what the final result is, just seek to be unashamed.
When it is really time to say goodbye to yourself, even if you don't know the final length of life, you don't waste your efforts in this life.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > I am @ a maverick fish, a 97-year-old girl who loves writing, welcome to follow me, uninterrupted sharing of interesting books, movies and anecdotes, original is not easy, reprint please authorize</h1>