More than life itself

Spanish poet Ramón Sampedro lay paralysed in bed after a diving accident for more than 20 years until his assisted death. Unlike Christopher Reeve, he didn't attempt to keep himself alive by every medical means available. Instead, he tried to persuade the government, his family and friends to help him die. This is the subject of Alejandro Amen·bar's Oscar-nominated film, which bears some resemblance to Whose Life Is It Anyway?

But this movie is distinctive. There are relatively few scenes where the pros and cons of assisted suicide are intensely debated, though there is one very funny sequence when Ramón argues with a pro-life Catholic priest who is just as incapacitated as he is. Javier Bardem's performance as Ramón inspires something stronger than mere pity.

Because this is a Spanish film and therefore subtitled, the Academy did not nominate Bardem for an individual Oscar - oddly, since the film, though beautifully acted by everyone, is no great work of art. It looks, in fact, much like an excellent television production, cursed with an overweening score (composed by the director, Amen·bar) that tries to underline its message as if all we want is a conventional weepie.

The acting is the thing, together with a screenplay that's more interesting than you might expect. How near the real story it manages to get is beside the point. Ramón fought for his right to die with such entirely humane humour and obstinacy that you wonder whether this former sailor actually wanted oblivion.

The film details not so much the moral argument as the legal one - remember, this is Catholic Spain - involving his bickering family, his conflicted lawyer (Belén Rueda) and the single mother (Lola Dueñas) who falls for him.

Amen·bar and his co-writer, Mateo Gil, have given everyone good lines, but it is Bardem you will remember. He never grandstands as an actor, never seems to be imploring us for sympathy. He simply, ruefully, exists when he wants regretfully to die. It is precisely because this is so modest a performance that it is so good.

Does Amen·bar, who made The Others and Open Your Eyes (remade as Vanilla Sky without him), show Ramón's dark and seemingly endless long nights of the soul? Not really. You don't often get a sense from the director and script of the pain and frustration that made Ramón want to die.

But you do from the actor, and that is why the film is very well worth seeing. Bardem makes death seem like a celebration, even more than life itself.

The Sea Inside (Mar Adentro)
Cert: certPG