This week I chose the movie "The Five People You Meet in Heaven". Actually, I have already read the novel a long time ago, maybe when I was a senior high school student, so I almost forgot about the plot of the story. I only remember a little impression on the book. I remember I recommended this book to my friends and said that it is a good novel. After some years, in fact, I didn't know that the story has become the movie. Didn't I know that until I found this DVD in the library.
Here is the cover of the novel
Summary
The main character of this story is an old man named Eddie. He works in an amusement park named Ruby Pier. He is a maintenance staff. He fixes the facility, keeps all the machines functioning well, makes the children safe. He is lame. He lost his right leg when he was in the military. Eddie usually complains about his life, family, and his "dumb" job, and he always likes to doubt the meaning of his life.
The story begins with the death of Eddie. One day, Eddie worked in the amusement park as usual. At first, nothing special happened, and everyone lives their life as they always do. However, something terrible happened on that day. There are four to five seats within the cart in the "Free Fall", an amusement facility which brings people up to a certain height and then drops toward the floor at a high speed. It seemed to have some problems with the facility. When it brought people to the top, it just stopped suddenly, and then the cart seemed to fall down without any safety measures. After the staff on the top saved the people who sat in the cart, the cart is almost going to fall. And all of a sudden, the maintenance Eddie saw a little girl sitting just underneath the falling cart. At that moment, Eddie exerted all his strength even without the cane to save the girl. Eddie died on that day.
Eddie died. He went to the Heaven. Here goes to the setting of this story. When a person dies, he will meet five people in the Heaven. Each people will teach the person something about his life. You may know the person, or you may not.
The first person: The Blue Man
This man has the blue skin. He told Eddie about himself, about how he become a "blue-skinned" man, and how he died. One day when he drived on the road, a boy suddenly rushed to the front of the car. The blue man died in a car accident because he wanted to avoid the boy. However, the little boy was Eddie. And of course, didn't he know about the man and the accident until the blue man told him in Heaven.
The blue man wants to teach Eddie that all things happened are connected. When someone dies, there will be someone live. No life is a waste.
The second person: The Captain
The setting changes. Eddie met his second person in Heaven. He is the captain when Eddie was in the military. At that time, they were having a war in Philippines, and they were captured by Japanese. On a night, they were trying to escape. Eddie was trying to burn down the huts there, but suddenly he stopped in front of a burning hut. Eddie thought he saw a person inside it, and he insisted on going inside the burning hut. At the moment just before Eddie went inside, The Captain shot Eddie's right leg in order to save him. Later the Captain died when he stepped on the landmine.
The Captain wants to teach Eddie about sacrifice. The Captain died because he wanted to explore the road first for the other people. He sacrifice himself and save all the others' life. Furthermore, he shot Eddie's leg to save Eddie's life because he thought Eddie was obbessed by something.
The third person: Ruby
The third person Eddie met in Heaven is Ruby. She is the owner of Ruby Pier. The amusement park is named after her. She told Eddie about his father. Eddie hated his father because he beat and humiliate Eddie when he was little. Ruby told Eddie that he doesn't really know his father, and how his father died.
Ruby wants to tell Eddie that he should forgive his father.
The fourth person: Marguerite
Marguerite was Eddie's wife. Eddie loves her so much, but she died of illness. After she dies, Eddie became more melancholy.
She wants to teach Eddie about love, "Lost love". People must die, but love won't. Eddie should let her go.
The fifth person: Tala
The last person Eddie met is the little named Tala. She is the person in the hut which Eddie saw in the war. Eddie was not crazy. The little girl Tala was inside the burning hut. And Eddie burned down the hut, and the girl. Eddie bursted intro tears.
The little girl told Eddie that everyone has his thing to do in the life. Eddie thinks he is so bad. He complains about his life, his leg, and his job. He wanted to see many places instead of just staying at this stupid pier. He thinks he did nothing meaningful in his life. But the little girl Tala told Eddie that he protects all the children in Ruby Pier everyday. That's why he never left Ruby Pier, because he is supposed to stay there. And he saved the little girl underneath the falling cart.
Vocabulary & Phrase
1. bust up 爆裂, 弄壞, 弄糟
2. knock off 停止, 除去
3. crappy 糟糕的
4. buddy 好朋友, 好夥伴, 小男孩, 老兄
5. carousel 旋轉木馬
6. hydraulics 水力學
7. nitrate 硝酸鹽
8. choirboy 唱詩班的少年歌手
9. wiggle 扭動, 擺動
10. smallpox 天花
11. typhoid 傷寒
12. tetanus 破傷風
13. yellow fever 黃熱病
14. squelch 壓扁, 粉碎
15. sledgehammer 大錘
16. grunt V. 作咕噥聲, 發哼聲/ N. 美國步兵, 普通工作人員
17. carny 馬戲團成員, 巡迴遊藝團成員, 會雜耍的人/ V. 哄騙
18. walk tightropes 走繩索
19. pineapple 手榴彈
20. tar 焦油
21. lathe 車床
22. matchbook 紙板火柴
23. skunk 臭鼬, 可惡的人
24. tousle V. 弄亂(頭髮)
Quote& Good saying
I recorded a lot of quotations from this movie, because many of them are so touching, and can make me think about life's meaning.
The Blue Man Part:
The Blue Man: Fairness doesn't govern life and death. If it did, no good man would ever die young.
An airplane crashes that you should have been on. A fire burns the building that you left an hour before. There are no random acts. We are all connected. Good comes from it.
Eddie: Good? What good came from this? You died.
The Blue Man: Well......you lived.
Eddie: But I barely knew you. We were stangers.
The Blue Man: Strangers are just family you have yet come to know. No life is a waste.
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The Captain Part:
The Captain: I took your leg to save your life!
The Captain: Sacrifice. I made one. You made one. But you had the wrong idea about yours. You got angry, kept thinking about what you lost. You didn't get it.
Sacrifice ain't something to be ashamed of. It is something to be proud of. If people stop sacrificing for one another, they lose what makes them human. It's the nobliest thing we do.
Eddie: But you lost everything.
The Captain: Well, that's the thing about sacrifice. Sometimes when you think you are losing something, you are really just passing it on to someone else. Fogive me about the leg?
(shaking hands)
The Captain: That's what I was waiting for.
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Ruby Part:
Ruby: Anger is a poison. It ate us, inside. We think by hating someone we hurt them, but hatred is a curved blade. And the harm that we do to others, we also do to ourselves. You need to forgive your father.
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Marguerite Part
Marguerite: Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't hold their hands, you can't tousle their hairs......but when those senses weaken, another one comes to life. Memory, memory becomes your partner. You hold it . You dance with it. Life has to end. Love doesn't.
Reflection
I really love this story. It makes me think a lot of things about the life. It teaches me that "No life is a waste." We often complain about our life, our job, our family, but we seldom look on the other side of it. We like to regret about what we have done, or something that happened, but we never think about it in another way. Take Eddie's leg for example, he was very upset about his leg. He thought his whole life is doomed to fail. However, he didn't know the captain sacrifed his life just to make all the others escape alive. If the Captain didn't shoot Eddie, maybe Eddie would really go into the burning hut and then burned to die. Eddie didn't know that there was someone had already exchanged his own life for Eddie's. Eddie thought he has a "stupid" job, but he didn't know that he protected so many children in the park everyday, keeping them evryone safe. And if Eddie is not in Ruby Pier, who would be the one to save the little girl underneath the falling cart?
Don't be so regretful and remorseful for what had already happened, because we have no chances to change it. But we all have the chance to make things better, just trying to do what we can do. Look things on the other side, then the whole world can be so different!
This movie makes me think a lot about life, and think a lot of things in a different way. And I think many good sayings from the movie could really help me in my life.
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