In ‘Mozhi’ Jyothika
portrayed a powerful character who cannot speak. Comedian MS Bhaskar in the role of forgetful
Professor was shown as forgetting events and living in past. He would often ask ‘ennathu Gandhiyai
suttutungala’ [what they have shot Gandhi ?] … ennathu Indira Gandhi is shot
dead ….
Sometime back,
The Hindu quoted Dr Kopelman
citing research by clinical neuropsychologist
Sallie Baxendale seaking on how films
promoted myths about the complex neuro-psychogenic condition of amnesia. Dr.
Kopelman pointed out that Baxendale's review of about 300 films, beginning with
the silent era that have dealt with amnesia, found that the movies often
confused the neurological with the psychological forms of the condition,
assumed that focal retrograde amnesia to be the usual pattern, and even
ludicrously suggested that the best treatment for memory loss owing to a head
injury was another blow to the head. Yes, in most movies, the irreparable loss
would be reversed when a similar situation is stimulated ! According to Dr.
Kopelman, memory disorders could be categorised as ones with a neurological (or
brain) basis and others with a psychological causation, those that are
associated with transient memory loss and forms with persistent dysfunction of
recall.
Miles away in an instance
reported in Daily Mail, Candace Emptage talks about the Spice Girls as if it
was only yesterday that they were the biggest girl band on the planet. She is
word perfect as she sings the first lines of their 1996 number one hit Wannabe. Ask her about her daughter Maddie’s
childhood, however, and everything is a complete blank. Nothing. She can’t
remember a thing, even when photographs charting 13 years of once cherished
memories are placed before her. Maddie’s first words, her first birthday, her
first steps, her first Christmas, her first day at school — all completely
forgotten as if they had never happened — while inconsequential memories of
Scary and Posh remain infuriatingly crystal clear.
Candace Emptage, 40, woke
up from a coma and believed it was 1996 and that she was still 22. She had
forgotten 13 years of her daughter Maddie's life. Brain-injured in a car crash
when she was 36, former beauty queen Candace emerged from a six-week coma
thinking she was 22 and the Spice Girls still topped the charts. She thought
that John Major was still Prime Minister and that Princess Diana and Michael
Jackson were still alive. Everything that happened after the Nineties — Tony
Blair, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Millennium celebrations — was a void. A
decade-and-a-half of life history gone; all memories of her only child swept
away.
Candace nearly died in the
2010 accident, after she lost control of her car on a bend on the A694 in Tyne
and Wear and careered into the path of an oncoming ambulance. Cut from the twisted wreckage, she was not
expected to last the night and spent six weeks in an induced coma at Newcastle
General Hospital after suffering severe head injuries. Her chances, according
to her medical team, were just 50/50. Her devastated family were on the point
of deciding whether to switch off her life-support machine when they saw
Candace run a hand through her hair — her first movement since the crash — and
her subsequent recovery has been quite remarkable. Last month, she took the
momentous step of meeting members of the fire crew who fought to save her life
that night. She wanted to thank them personally, and they, in turn, were amazed
to meet the young woman whom none dared to hope would survive.
She’d driven to the
station alone — another enormous feat in her climb back to recovery. But,
sadly, the memories that were stolen still elude her. Today, she accepts they
may never return. It’s hard to imagine the confusion, the sense of loss and
loneliness of waking up effectively transported into a body that has aged
inexplicably. To realize more than ten years had disappeared, taking with them
massive life events of which she had no inkling.
Very strange
… but true – Cinema is impacted by real and unreal events – and rarely real
life instances do look like occurrences in cinema !
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
8th Dec 2014.
