The Guitar
Well, what can I say — of course, it’s a fairy tale and a bit grotesque. But still, it’s a very real, very human film about a woman who looks death straight in the face.
In the movie, she is diagnosed with a terminal illness and given no more than two months to live.
Unlucky, fired, abandoned, and sentenced to just two months of life, she finally decides to truly live.
She spends everything she has — and everything she doesn’t have — piling up credit card debt, and completely transforms herself and her life:
She rents an expensive apartment with high ceilings, buys beautiful things — all kinds of whimsical lamps, elegant, expensive furniture.
But it’s not just about buying expensive things — she chooses things that speak to her style.
She tells her friend that the objects “talk to her,” that they tell her stories, as if they are communicating with her.
They are the right things, chosen by her soul.
Among other things, she finally fulfills her childhood dream: to learn to play the electric guitar.
The process of her transformation is astonishingly compelling — it draws the viewer inside, into everything that’s happening to her.
The Bucket List
The same theme echoed just a couple of days ago when I stumbled upon a film available on cable, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson — The Bucket List.
A rough translation of the title would be The List Before the Coffin — in other words, a list of things you want to do before you “kick the bucket.”
Both characters are lying in the same hospital room, and both know they will soon die from a serious illness.
And both decide to write a bucket list — and to actually live it out.
And they start doing it.
The spectacle, of course, is gripping.
I cried my eyes out, too.
And after watching it, I made a firm decision:
I won’t wait until the time comes when I feel like writing my own bucket list and there’s barely any time left.
I’ll do everything now.