RIFLE RANGE BOY: morbidity

The Almond and Sea Horse (2022)
Director: Celyn Jones and Tom Stern

Within the evolutionary scale of things, the human brain evolved. Our brain can roughly be divided into three parts. There is the primitive part, which controls our essential body functions and aids in our fight-or-flight response. The basal ganglia, cerebellum and brainstem form this reptilian complex. Next came the paleomammalian complex, which gave the limbic system the pathway of emotion and linked with memory. The Amygdala and hippocampus, which look like an almond and a seahorse (title of the movie), are found here. The most recently evolved is the neomammalian complex (neocortex). It connects to all the older brain parts to give humans the complex functions they do.

This film acts more like a public service announcement to educate us on living with patients with amnesia. As we can increasingly salvage patients who suffer from severe brain conditions, patients are left to fend for themselves with much morbidity. The patients themselves do not realise that they are not functioning normally. They think they are functioning normally; the world is the one that has changed. The loved ones and family are the ones who have the brunt of all the heartaches and inconveniences in their lives.

We only look at the grander outlook of things. We only look at survival rates and salvageability from serious ailments but conveniently overlook the morbidity that the family caring for the patient must endure daily.

The independent film looks at two couples. In the first, after a near-fatal car crash, a then-pregnant lady survives while losing her child. Her lesbian partner endured 15 years living with a stranger who cannot remember their previous liaisons and sexuality. The trauma of living with a stranger with retrograde amnesia, who had shared so much together, is too overwhelming for the other partner. She had to give up her job as an architect for her sake.

In the other story, an archaeologist is living in a meaningless marriage. Her husband had a brain tumour operated on. The surgery was successful but left his memory stuck at a time before the operation. He is childlike, cannot work, forgets to take his medications and is socially awkward. Their dreams of starting a family are crushed.

There is medical rehabilitation, but only so much one can do. Life is never the same.