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Limb & Spinal Major 
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TITLE |
First Steps (1985) (TV Film) |
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DISABILITY |
Limb
wheelchair |
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NOTES |
After a car
accident a teenage girl is paralysed. A bioengineer seeks to
help her walk again using electric stimulation. |
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The film is
basically painting by numbers, most of the right |
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buttons are
pressed, and there's the appearance of reality. |
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But this is
sanitised stuff. Though her spine is broken she is |
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perfect is
every other way. Her face immediately after the |
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crash is
unmarked even though we can infer it would be |
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otherwise.
The film has parallel stories, one of her struggles, |
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the other of
the scientist's work. The finale is of her walking, |
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with
electronic stimulation, to receive her high school diploma. |
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What was
wrong with her using her wheelchair, what's so |
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great about
standing up in the way it is represented here? |
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Of course
there is an important film to be made about this |
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technique.
British TV did a good programme on a woman |
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learning to
walk by this method. But what she achieved was |
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limited to
standing at the bar of a pub. It's a technique for the |
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future in
which paraplegics are the guinea pigs and which one day will be
wonderful. But for now is the dedication of so much time by
the disabled person to raise themselves from sitting to
standing and then nothing further worth it? It also confines the
person to being a patient and not developing their life. |
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Notes
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