There's your paradox and why your post doesn't make sense. If she didn't understand what she was watching it was exactly the time to do it! If she could remember what she was watching it wouldn't have been relevant.
As I indicated from the outset, the scene is disturbing because of what we know or are seeing.
From this perspective, the paradox becomes morally relevant - or rather, its a moral dilemma because of the paradox that emerges in our recollections of Alice.
You're claim that it was 'exactly the right time to act' because she no longer remembers who she is falsely identifying her past self with her future self.
Alice 1 and Alice 2 aren't the same person anymore: they become morally distinct entities when the connective tissue of time (via a remembrance of things past) frays the claim on her own identity.
Whilst the tenuous link between them might (paradoxically) justify the 'suicide' attempt, the paradox also raises the question of whether Alice's own instructions to herself invariably become murder.
We know the difference between the two Alice's and are able to distinguish (identify) them according to their sense of self.
The audience essentially becomes Alice's proxy or acts as her surrogate throughout time: the reason she's 'still Alice' is because of the continuity in our perception of her.
Paradoxically, it's also why Alice is not the same person anymore: we can identify or locate the difference on a continuum.
And the paradox is the reason why the ending is so moving - Alice continues to exists because of the connection that is displaced outside of her own memories or sense of self: within the loving bond between mother and daughter (and by implication, the audience watching).
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registers-944-48791
10 years ago
Very interesting oppinions.
Well, Alice had indeed changed. We ourselves change: our poersonality, our opinions, our decisions.
We can take a decision today and regret a year later.
In this case, I don't see the deeply deseased Alice as a new person. She is incapable in front of law, she needs somebody to be responsible for her.
She's not a new person. She's just a changed person. Lots of things we live on, including deseases, changes us.
In a country where eutanasia is accepted, and considering that Alice was required another person to be legally responsible for her actions and choices, wouldn't her own self from before the desease be accepted for that decision?
But on the other side, let's suppose that when she recorded the movie she had made the decision of dying when she was unable to remember the most basic memories she loves the most. But what if, when the desease developed and she was already impaired, she'd find herself happy and willing to live?
Back to what the movie gives us, I again don't see it as an act of murder. If Alice was hearthy enough to understand what she was being asked to do and to choose otherwise, she'd just not do it. But if she's impaired enough to not understand it, then she should just follow her own wish.
The whole point here, as with said, is that she didn't want to live and force her famility to live on a position that she changed to much to the point that she *seemed* another, empty, person.
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registers-944-48791
10 years ago
Regarding losing the phone, I don't see it as a "hollywoodness". I see it as showing how the desease develops, and how people are not prepared for it. When Alice recorded the movie, she was setting a plan, where she'd continue to test her memory and in a sad day she'd totally fail it, then face the instructions and follow them.
What I thought more probable, was that somebody else would find the plan and destroy the instructions, or find her while she was following them and stop her
But none of those was what end up happening. Way before she'd lose all the pointed memories, she ended up forgetting where she put the phone, forgetting the test. She never failed the test, and found the movie in an accident. And she was alone for nobody to stop her. But she was soo ill that she was even unable to follow the instructions to success of the plan. She didn't suicide and nobody ever knew about it.
Very very sad.
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GuyOnTheLeft
9 years ago
I think you went off track toward the end there. She almost did pull it off. If her caregiver had come in a half hour later (maybe even a minute later), I think she would have pulled it off.
But I also wonder why you think nobody ever knew about it. You think no one came across the pills all over the floor? The bottle with "TAKE THEM ALL" on it? The video on the computer, open and easy to replay?
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