Examples Of Grief In Alumbramiento

The audience is inserted into a loving family home and are witnesses to the last night on earth for the matriarch of the family. It takes different viewpoints and directions from the different characters it uses. The ending of the film is inevitable, and for any of the viewers that have lost a close relative it is familiar and relatable. The short film Alumbramiento illustrates the different ways in which people deal with the subject of death or loss, and follows the five stages of grief. The first step of grief that is pictured is anger and is shown by when the son and his wife are on their way to his mother and she goes to comfort him by taking his hand and he recoils away from her. It could also mean that the stress of taking care of his
dying mother is trickling over to his relationship with his wife. The stage of denial is shown next by the son, who is also a doctor, listing off the medicines that they have tried and the ones that they are about to use in attempt to prolong his mother’s life. The following stage is bargaining and it is presented by showing the mother gasping and visibly and audibly in pain and the son responding trying to calm her and when that wouldn’t work by giving her a dose of medicine to put her to sleep. The stage of depression is expressed by the dark lingering shots of family photos on walls, and then the juxtaposition of the son also sitting in the dark. Then the final stage which is acceptance is expressed when the mother is having another gasping fit and hysterically asking for her mother. The son is trying to calm her with no avail when finally the daughter comes and sits on the bed cradling her mother’s head and speaking to her as if she is the mother while reminding her of the song that she used to sing to the siblings. The brother then accepting that his mother is dying begins to sing the song as the mother calmly passes away. This film beautifully illustrates the five stages of grief and how it affects a person who is witnessing a loved one die. We are made to be witnesses of a son who is traversing these stages and in the end comes to inescapable conclusion. Through watching this film the audience will either think of someone they have lost and compare their life, or be warned of the feelings that they will encounter when faced with the matter of death.