Watched 'Cocoon' and 'Cocoon - The Return' the other day. It's been a while since I last saw them, but I think there have rarely been two films made that so honestly and tenderly explore the concepts of getting old, the gradual frailty that so often engulfs the human body, and ultimately death and what that means to those left behind.
It's worth watching both films in rapid succession. In the first, old age citizens at death's door escape to a planet where they will remain fit and healthy and never die. In the second they come back to Earth, where they are exposed to their own mortality once more. Some succumb, a couple return to the planet (for reasons I won't spoil if you haven't seen it), and others choose to stay behind and face the inevitable.
Somehow in the reasoning behind their choice, and also in the story of another man who is grieving for his lost wife but learns to live again while he is still alive himself, the seemingly unfair spectre of our own mortality actually reveals a hidden beauty. They are films that will leave you with a determination to make every day count, a tinge of sadness at seeing the path we all must take, but also a realisation that something about death is perhaps not all bad if we don't take ourselves too seriously in the here and now.
Somehow in the reasoning behind their choice, and also in the story of another man who is grieving for his lost wife but learns to live again while he is still alive himself, the seemingly unfair spectre of our own mortality actually reveals a hidden beauty. They are films that will leave you with a determination to make every day count, a tinge of sadness at seeing the path we all must take, but also a realisation that something about death is perhaps not all bad if we don't take ourselves too seriously in the here and now.
