HUMALIT A52 Miss Jo Almanzor
Llamado, Alexandra E.
Reflective paper on The Lovely Bones The first binary opposition I’ve identified in the movie is basically the idea of life and death. Obviously, we know that these will never meet. But in the story, there was actually an existing gray area between these two. Susie wasn’t gone neither frozen. She was alive. Just when we thought that these ideas will never meet. Susie was still “living” in her own perfect world. The second binary opposition I’ve identified is the concept of denial and acceptance. These are the things Susie’s parents were actually doing. Her dad, Jack, wasn’t ready yet to let go of Susie. He wanted to either kill or hurt the murderer for killing his daughter. He wouldn’t stop solving the mystery, but this is not the case for his wife. All she knows is that their daughter is already dead, and she just wants him to end whatever he was doing. Denial and acceptance are two different ideas but Susie’s parents were in these states because of the love for their daughter. The third binary opposition I’ve identified is reality and fantasy. Susie’s was living in reality. She’s somehow “in love.” She was able to experience the feeling of a first kiss, and also got pregnant at the end. These are things Susie wouldn’t experience anymore. All she can do is be happy for her sister. Susie was somehow able to experience being kissed by the guy she likes, but still through a different body. The fourth binary opposition I’ve identified is good and evil. Susie’s dad can be considered good and the murderer as evil. When we think of someone as a “good person”, we believe that he should be blessed. And for the one who is evil, we think of him as someone who is or should be experiencing a lot of difficulties. But in the movie, both met up in the middle when the murderer’s soul left his body and when Susie’s mother left her father. Both experienced complications but of course, the one who is evil got a “not so good” ending. The fifth binary opposition I’ve identified is between heaven and earth. We all know that heaven and earth are separated. But in the movie, an “in between” exists. It is considered as the blue horizon between heaven and earth. Susie was here. She was able to listen and communicate to her family through different ways. She can still feel different emotions. She was dead but was also alive in the “in between.” Death will be our ending, the ending of our lives. But will it be a permanent end? Or is there still life after death? These are the questions a human brain cannot fully understand. Yes, we have religions. We believe in incarnations, miracles, angels, heaven, and even in hell; but all these are just part of our beliefs. Humans will continue to seek for answers. The curiosity will remain in each and every one of us. And at the end of the day, can a bible or even a movie such as The Lovely bones can exactly show us what’s in it for us after we die? Or even assure us that “yes, there is still life after death”? At the first part of The Lovely Bones, a younger Susie Salmon was already worried about the penguin inside the snow globe since he was “alone.” Her dad then answered, “He has a nice life. He’s trap in a perfect world.” Well, the same thing happened to Susie after she was murdered at the age of 14. According to her, she was in the “blue horizon between heaven and earth.” And at first, all she did was walk, play, and look at her family and the boy she likes. She never looked forward. Susie wasn’t thinking about doing that just yet. According to Susie’s dad, hobbies are healthy. They teach you things. You start something you’ve finished, yet you don’t stop until you get it right. You start over again and you keep going as long as you have to. This was actually what Susie was doing. She wanted to go back. For her, there was still something she meant to do. Somewhere she was meant to be. Her memories and the things she was dreaming of doing, like the first kiss, were stopping her from looking beyond. Susie was slowly realizing what she was meant to do, understanding that it all changed when she died. To her, she wasn’t lost, frozen, or gone. She was alive in her own perfect world, just like the penguin in the snow globe. Life was leaving her but she wasn’t afraid. Life after death I think is all about acceptance. You, accepting, that you’re already dead. You, accepting, that you’re meant to do a different thing now. You, accepting the fact that you have to leave behind the past and look forward. “There’s a wide wide heaven beyond everything we knew” – Holly. What’s life after death? This is a question we cannot possibly answer correctly, but we can still response to it in anyway we want to. It will depend on the kind of person we are and the things we believe in. I liked how The lovely bones portrayed the idea of life after death. You’re alive in your own “perfect world”, known as the purgatory; but it’s all about accepting the fact that life already left you. Just like what Holly said, “You’re not supposed to look back. You’re supposed to keep going.” The background music in a movie can get our attention. It can also increase our emotions. When a movie was able to touch our soul to the point that we’re about to cry, the slow or sad background music will push our emotions. It will sometimes make us cry harder. When we’re watching a thriller movie or even the one that includes death and blood, the music will make us feel more terrified. Even the simple creaking floor or door sounds will make us feel what the director wants us to feel. The costume or the wardrobe also has a big impact on the movie. It will give us explanations to different sort of things. An example would be a man torturing a boy wearing striped pajamas. This will already give us ideas like “this happened during the holocaust” or “oh the boy is a Jew.” Both the background music and the background music will have an effect to us regarding the film we’re watching. It will make us feel and know things about the movie.