Bringing out the Dead - 7

This film uses the theme of death to tell the story of life and compassion. It also deals with two related ideas, grief and confession. How do people grieve? How do we deal with death? The answers to these questions is as diverse as the many people that will all eventually have to face these questions in their life time. In the film the characters start to recognize the vitality of life, but also become both numb and hyper-sensitive to death, and the effects it has on the mind and heart. The main character, Frank, starts to realize that he is in a priestly role as an ambulance driver. He is their with those who die, and with those that are left alive at the place of death, he is their for others comfort. This film is also filled with confession. Everyone has the need and longing to be connected to others, and eventually our thoughts and feelings are brought into the open, exposed, confessed, and seen for what they are, part of the foibled human experience. This film is not without hope. It comes form the fact and often amazing miracle that is human life, our ability to survive. In spite of all the death in the world, there are more than 6 billion people on this earth, it would be naive and foolish to claim that as just an accident.