"Things I Don"t Understand’ – What Happens When We Die?
by Writer/Director David Spaltro’s follow up to his first feature "…Around" stars Molly Ryman as a graduate student working on a thesis investigating what happens when you die. But the movie proves to be more of an exploration in how we all live our lives today, and how we are stuck in moments in time or thirsting for a future which may never be.
“You’ve got to get yourself together,
You’ve got stuck in a moment
And now you can’t get out of it.
Don’t say that later will be better…”
-U2
“Nothing fades as fast as the future,
Nothing clings like the past.”
-Peter Gabriel
“More Than This”
What really happens to us when we die? It almost seems like a foolish question to ask because we will only get to find out when we depart this mortal coil, and we won’t be able to tell anyone what it’s like. The only thing people can seem to agree on is that they move towards a “bright light,” but that only tells us so much. Nevertheless, we still look for an answer to this question mainly because it will confirm the things we are led to believe. At the same time, thinking about the future this deeply is not much different from being stuck in the past.
Movies like “Flatliners,” “The Sixth Sense,” and even “Ghost” have explored this subject in various ways, but David Spaltro’s “Things I Don’t Understand” is one of the more thoughtful I have seen on in recent years. It’s not interested in coming up with some supernatural answer to this question, but instead in how our curiosity can somehow rob us of what meaning our lives have. Here we meet a variety of characters whose mind and thoughts are broken as their present lives seem unfulfilling because of physical and emotional scars, and their futures all seem relentlessly bleak.
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Post Commentfishfry aka Elizabeth Figueroa
On January 13, 2012 at 4:05 am
These question and alot more crossed my mind as my dad’s life was coming to a close. I have settled on the belief that we are all one, and in heaven time is eternity, and goes by fast. So our love ones who are still with us, and see us suffer, also see the bigger picture. A glorious happiness that comes when we are one with God.