This entry is based on the movie I watched recently. The Impossibles is a 2012 disaster drama film directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, tells the true story of a Spanish family's experience of the Tsunami 2004 that eats hundred thousands of life.
The film tells the true story of Maria and Henry Belon, played by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, and their three children. It starts as the family begins their Christmas vacation in Thailand, with the intention of spending a few days at a tropical paradise resort. Their idyllic vacation is interrupted on the morning of December 26, 2004, when a devastating tsunami destroys the coastal zone. In surviving the disaster, the family is separated and a desperate search to reunite ensues.-(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheImpossible2012film)
Naomi Watts performance in this movie moves me. She fits in the role perfectly. She interprets the role of how a mother would react to survive in that bloody massacre of situation and motivates her son to help other people. The movie is just not about the terrifying tsunami itself, its more about the human condition, to show the moment in which a person faces his or her own tsunami. Naomi nominated for OSCAR Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama, she truly deserves it.
Tom Holland who played as Lucas, the eldest of the three lads, making one of the finest feature debuts in years. He's only 13 when the movie starts filming. He shows what courageous really is, I know I made it sounds a bit exaggerating, but wait till you watched the movie. How he struggles to hold his though worrying about his mom and then helped the others around him. If the true story isn't like it was in the movies, I would still praise Tom himself and the one who experiences it in real time, Lucas Belon.
Enough with the spoilers. Go watch the movie first, then judge yourself. For me, the movie resonates me to react better if this kind of things ever happened.
Back to the original family who experiences this in real life, the spanish family, The Belon. Now it may contain spoiler in the movie, so you better stop here. The mother’s name is Maria Belon and the father’s name is Enrique Belon. They have three sons and their names are Lucas Belon, Simon Belon and Tomas Belon. They vacationed in Thailand over the Christmas holidays in 2004. They were on the set when they filming the movie where they helped the cast on how they should play their roles perfectly. That what helps Watts and co to perform miraculously well and original. Who knows better than the survivor themself.
This is from Maria Belon herself : She said: 'I remember being pushed against walls. You could feel them trembling and breaking, feeling them as they gave way one after another. The drowning sensation was like being in a spindryer. I saw many tunnels underwater, tunnels with lights at the end - the kind of vision that people tell you they see when they are going to die. Believing the rest of her family had died, Mrs Belon admitted there were moments when she felt like giving up. But she said life was 'wonderful again' when she finally surfaced and saw Lucas being swept past her alive. Lucas, who is now 18 and studying medicine at University College London, said jumping into the pool likely saved his life. 'I had never seen anything of that scale,' he told the Sunday Times magazine. 'It may as well have been the apocalypse.' The pair managed to grab hold of each other, clinging to a tree trunk, before eventually finding themselves in a kind of swamp. Mrs Belon later needed a life-saving operation to repair a horrific wound on her thigh and for deep gashes to her chest. - Maria Belon on The daily mail UK
From the father point of view : He who tried to grab his other children, Tomas, eight, and Simon, five, but lost them when he pummelled by the wave. He injured badly himself but then, when he came out of the water, he saw Tomas perched in a tree and about 40 minutes heard Simon, who had only just learned to swim, calling from another tree.
I highlighted this movie and chose to wrote about it, majorly because of how the family spirits within the Belon that kept on going and survive this worst natural catastrophes of our time. Its unfortunate for the others who do not survive. I have soft spot for this kind of movies, when it comes to family. I grew up in a smalltown and big family. I got 3 big sisters, 1 big brother and 1 lil bro. Even I hardly recalled where do we being so close with each other but still, we do care a lot about each other. They always called me Mom favorite son's and I don't know why they kept on calling me that. I don't take it as an offense tho because I love my mom more than anything. I faced my own tsunami just a while ago. When I broke my leg and have to lie on the bed for sick six month, guess who help me and lift me back up, my mom of course. awh, enough about me. By focusing on the survival of this one family rather than the scale of the event itself, a better, and more human, representation of the disaster is displayed, this film shines. This is a film that must be experienced by all. As you lay in your cozy beds tonight, take your loved ones for granted as they walk by you, and breath the air you so blindly feel entitled to, think about if at one moment, one single moment, from now, it was all gone. The Impossible dared me to be a better human being, a notion not many films will or attempt to convey.
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| Moment of impact: A still image from an amateur video shows a huge wall of water crashing onto land in Phuket, Thailand, on Boxing Day 2004 |
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| Devastation: A view from a helicopter of the damage caused by the tsunami in Phi Phi Island, south of Bangkok. p/s : prepare for lots of stitches and blood in the movies. The images may not pleased you. |
