Angeles University Foundation Mac Arthur Highway, 2009 Angeles City, Philippines COLLEGE OF NURSING A.

Y 2012-2013

A MOMENT TO REMEMBER (Movie Analysis)

Submitted by: Guina, Marjorie Kate L. BSN III-3

Submitted to: Anna Lyn M. Paano, RN, MN

I.

SUMMARY: The first segment of the film introduces the

protagonists, a woman named Su Jin and a man named Chul Soo. The movie highlights their accidental meeting, followed by their subsequent courting despite the social standings that should have kept them apart. Kim Su-Jin is a 27-year-old fashion designer, spurned by her lover, a colleague who was also a married man. Depressed, she goes to a convenience store, where she bumps into a tall, handsome man with whom she has a slight misunderstanding. Following that, she returns home and, receiving her father's forgiveness, decides to start life afresh. One day while accompanying her father, who is the head of a construction site, she coincidentally meets the man whom she earlier bumped into at the convenience store. He is Choi Chul-Soo, the construction site's foreman who is aiming to become an architect. Chul-Soo may appear like a rough and dirty construction worker initially, but exudes sheer masculinity in its most basic physical form. Su-Jin instantly takes a liking to Chul-Soo and in what is a refreshing change, actively courts him. There are many sweet events that take place in the occurrence of their courtship, eventually leading to their marriage. The second segment follows the couple settling into married life. Su-Jin

learns to be a housewife as her husband cares for her. As the segment progresses however, Su-jin begins to display forgetfulness, including an incident in which a fire breaks out because of a forgotten stove. While Chul Soo caught the fire in time, the seriousness of the incident and others like it draws them to seek medical help. The third segment involves the revelation of Alzheimer's disease and the couple's consequent response to it. Su Jin is heavily burdened by the knowledge that she will forget her husband and hides it from him until he seeks advice from the doctor himself. Despite the disease, they make the commitment to stay together and as the disease progresses, the trials the couple go through increase because of Su Jin's consistent loss of memory. The fourth segment reveals Su-jin in the final stages of the disease and the grief Chul Soo experiences because of it. Yet he remains beside her, despite her lost memory, hiding his eyes behind sunglasses when he visits her so she can't see his tears. The end of the movie finishes off with Chul Soo replaying the first time they met in the convenience store with all her friends and family there. In the final scene, Su-jin is riding beside her husband in the car in the sunset, and he can finally tell her, "I love you."

II.

Diagnosis/Disorder Presented in the movie

Alzheimers disease

The signs and symptoms of Alzheimers disease within the movie A Moment to Remember is quite good as it was shown with refinement, but as the movie would continue, it became more predictable that the actress would acquire the disease. At the start of the movie, it seemed that the absentmindedness of the main actress Kim Su-jin, is just because of deep sorrow or disturbance when her former lover did not show up in the place where they should meet. Su-Jin shows signs of absentmindedness early in the movie but ignores it. An early sign was when she was in the convenience store and bought a soda then leaves the store not noticing that forgot her wallet and the convenience store as well as the soda she bought. She only realized it when she was paying for the bus and looks for her wallet. Second was when she left the tea pot boiling while she took a bath. As the story progresses, her forgetfulness was viewed as just a little humor between the scenes. But, the coming of Alzheimers to her was almost given when she told her friends that she sometimes lost her way home when in fact the path to her house is familiar to her. She goes to a doctor soon after the incidents and she was asked by the doctor some questions regarding her condition, like if she ever blacked out recently due to stress. And she opens up something about her ex boyfriend. The doctor asked her to come back the next week for MRI and CT scan test. It was her second session to see her doctor; she was scolded because she came

back after two weeks. Random questions were asked to her, like what is the date today. But she cant ever answer because she said that she always lose track of the dates. A question like how old is her sister and when her sisters birthday is. But she was so unsure of her answer because she was bad with numbers she said. She easily forgets what is asked after it is said. CT Scan and MRI were done during this session. The night before going back to see her doctor, she was pasting something from newspapers and then she suddenly roams around the house, and sees her husband asking where was he? Or if he was the one who glued what she was pasting. And her husband was asking her what the doctor said but she didnt say anything. It was time for Su jin to come back for the results of the test, and the doctor was a bit on doubt of saying the results, and he explains that both MRI and PET Scan resulted that some abnormal proteins have clogged up the veins in her brain affecting her brain cells, resulting from Alzheimers disease. The disease is within the lineage of the family of Su-jin, so it was discovered that she had inherited it. Su-jin: Doctor Su-jin: So... But I'm only Lee: What's going to 27. How could It's happen to I be going senile? possible. me?

Doctor Lee: A mental death will come before a physical one. Better prepare yourself for what's inevitable. Medicine can slow it down. But that's about it. Su-jin: What about surgery?

Doctor Su-jin:

Lee:

Do

you

work? Yes.

Doctor Lee: You should quit right away. Soon you won't be able to type or answer the phone, let alone organize things. Pretty much nothing. You will forget your family, friends and even yourself. All your memories will disappear completely. Against the advice of her doctor, she opts not to tell her husband or her family about her condition and tries to live her life while she remembers. After quitting on her work, one morning she prepared packed lunch for her husband, but her husband found out that she both brought rice and no side dishes. That made him think and went to see the doctor of her wife. Su-jin: Cheol-su: Su-jin: That I have an eraser in my head. Let's part Cheol-su: What? Su-jin: Cheol-su: You were What right. are One can't you be happy forever. about? Did you find out? What? ways.

talking

Su-jin: It's all over. Think about it. What's love good for if my memory is gone? Don't be so nice to me. I'll forget everything.

Chul Soo visited the doctor and learnt about Su Jin's condition. By this time, Su Jin's condition was bad enough that she could not find her way home. In one occasion, she drifted to the baseball practice court which she and Chul Soo visited during their first few dates. Chul Soo spent the whole day looking for Su Jin and finally found Su Jin at the baseball court. At the baseball court, the couple finally discussed about their condition. Su Jin reluctantly told Chul Soo that there was no point in continuing the relationship or being good to her; since she would eventually lose all the memory. The couple struggled with Su Jin's condition. The disease brought much depression and frustrations to her and her husband, Chul-soo. Frequent forgetfulness was painstakingly, as Su Jin was feeling more pessimistic as her condition got worse and Chul Soo was doing everything he could to slow the memory loss process. Chul-soo began to stick photos of them and making little notes about the events in the photos. The final straw for Su Jin came when she called out the name of her ex-boyfriend when she was calling for Chul Soo.

III.

REACTION: If there is a movie that made me cry- a river, it would be a moment to

remember. Such a heart breaking movie that brought tears in my eyes. The story was so pure and its genuine love. It showed what really love is. Everything in the movie is great from the actors, director, staff, music, writers. Everything was superb.

I CANT imagine myself having a boyfriend with Alzheimers. Im scared to have one. Im afraid that one day he'll forget me. Im afraid that he'll call me not by name but his first love, it hurts like hell. It will be one of the painful moments of my life. The scene and its lines were just too painful to handle. I cant hardly stop myself crying buckets of tears. This movie is just so heartbreaking. I cant imagine losing my memories and hurting the person i truly love by confusing him with my ex-lover. I dont want to say "i love you" to the wrong person .I dont want to lose my memories both good and bad. Its difficult losing the memories you hang onto, especially the memories that make you stronger, once you lose them, you are left with a hole in your heart. No matter how hard you try to remember, no matter how hard you want to recall, you cant. You just have to wait and hope that someday, it comes back to you. I know nowadays, a lot of us want to FORGET, forget about certain people, certain memories. But what we dont know is that if we actually do forget we wont be who we are today. It all has happened for a reason. Rather than waiting for time to give us our memories back, why don t let time heal our wounds instead.