Awakening by Oliver Sacks

Awakenings probably is one of the best educational movies that I’ve ever seen which is based on true story of a doctor (Dr. Sayer) fighting for miracle of patients with encephalitis epidemic. In this movie, I admire Dr. Sayer’s indomitable spirit of not giving up on his patients, fighting for them even others disagreed him. From the beginning of the story, Dr Sayer discovered interesting facts on his patients, which they have certain stimuli such as catching the ball thrown at them. And also later he discovered that one of his patient, Leonard, actually can hear him and communicate with him. Later, he used the new drug that is for Parkinson’s disease on Leonard, surprisingly Leonard awakes to the reality and is able to do normal activities. Unfortunately Dr. Sayer found out it only last for a period of time, patients with encephalitis epidemic were back to the catatonic state. Also, I admire Leonard’s optimistic personality against his disease in the end. Though Leonard has experienced a short period of awake and being agitated towards everyone, in the end he still managed to accept the fact and spend his remaining times, helping Dr. Sayer to film and record the process of himself.

In the beginning of the film, Dr. Sayer was an introvert and did not have many friends. He even rejected nurse’s date and spend time on his books. As time went by, because of the Leonard’s issue, he finally dated the nurse out for coffee. While Leonard was a mannered guy after his awake, who knows turned into an agitated person. Fortunately, he accepted truth and he wished to contribute something for his friend (Dr. Sayer).

In this film, I feel very touched of what Dr. Sayer did for his patients and not giving up on them even there were failures. What I dislike about the movie would be the ending of the story is not a good ending for patients with encephalitis epidemic. I have sympathy towards the patients with encephalitis epidemic. I’ve learned that we should not give up easily when there are obstacles and we should fight for the miracle.