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Clip description
An alarm clock goes off. In different parts of the city a young woman and a woman with severe cerebral palsy both lie in their beds. The former, day carer Madelaine (Joey Kennedy), turns the alarm off and goes back to sleep, then later wakes and springs out of bed realising she is late for work. However, the partially paralysed Julia (Heather Rose) can do nothing but wait for Madelaine to turn up to help her out of bed.
Curator’s notes
The film’s opening economically introduces the two main characters and contrasts their very different lives and the bodies that make those lives possible or circumscribe them. It shows the women having trouble getting up. Madelaine is capable of springing out of bed, it’s just that she’d rather not. Julia wants to (so she can go to the toilet, we learn later) but is unable. Madelaine’s difficulty in getting to work on time, and the hardship and frustration this causes for Julia, is a thread that will recur throughout the film. Madelaine enjoys freedoms that Julia lacks. When she does get up, she looks at her naked body in the bathroom mirror yet seems unhappy with what she sees.
De Heer doesn’t hold back from showing us how severely disabling Julia’s condition is – not only is her movement limited, she appears to have trouble breathing. De Heer is already presenting us with a far more intimate and confronting portrait of disability than we’re used to seeing on film.
