NEVER LET ME GO - 5 Movies That Changed My Life

The Film Poster For Never Let Me Go

This film is essentially a parable, a microcosm of human life.

It is set in a world where people are created artificially, so that their organs can be harvested whenever a human needs a transplant. For this reason, the donors never live past thirty.

As we watch the characters we experience the pain of the shortness of their lives, but this is then reflected back onto us, at the shortness of our own lives.

This was one of those rare films where when it ended, I just sat in silence until the credits finished, processing what I had seen. I then watched all of the extras. 

In the extras the director talks about interviews that he had conducted in preparation for this movie, with people who had been given a terminal diagnosis.

One of the things that he found while conducting the interviews was that when people were given the news, the vast majority of people did not go on that cruise they had always wanted to go on, or booked a round the world trip. Instead they went home, cooked beans on toast and watched Eastenders with their family.

Essentially what he was saying, was that the things that they were already doing, in their day to day lives were imbued with a new sense of meaning.

The things that they were doing, the interactions that they were having, the relationships around them, all these things were brought into bright focus, and they realised that they didn't want to be anywhere else than right where they were.

This is the purpose of the film Never Let Me Go. It causes us to look at our own mortality, and to live in the present. To not wish for a different time or place, either in the future or the past, but to be truly grateful for what we have right now, in the moment.

To treasure the relationship that we have, to take nothing for granted.

We live in a culture that always tells us the next thing that we need, to never be satisfied until we have that promotion, or that product - for me Never Let Me Go is an antidote to this.

May we be those that treasure each moment, may we be those that become aware of the here and now, and may we be those that never overlook the beautiful relationships that have been put in our path.

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