Alicia
Clip 2: God is love
2 min 21 sec (
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Taken from the documentary Alicia (1996)
Original title classification PG – this clip chosen to be PG
Availability of the complete title
Curator’s clip description
A doctor describes Alicia’s condition and poor prognosis after the accident. Alicia and her family re-enact how they gathered round her hospital bed to pray while she is in a critical condition. Alicia and her father describe the moment when their prayers appeared to be answered and she began to improve.
Teachers’ notes
provided by The Le@rning Federation
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This clip shows a neurosurgeon speaking about Alicia Liley, and the part that modern medicine played in her recovery. In separate sequences Alicia, her father and her mother describe how they believe the family’s collective faith helped Alicia pull through, even after the doctors warned that her chances of survival were slim. The clip includes a re-enactment of the family gathered around Alicia’s hospital bed and ends with still photographs of a recovering Alicia.
Educational value points
- In 1988 Alicia Liley, an 18-year-old drama student had a near-fatal car accident that left her in a coma for 8 weeks. Doctors told her family it was unlikely that she would ever recover from a vegetative state, but after coming out of the coma and 10 months of rehabilitation, Alicia left hospital able to walk, talk and write, and soon after acquired her driver’s licence.
- This experience has had an effect on Alicia’s sense of identity. She believes that her recovery indicates that ‘there is a purpose for my life’ and in 1994 she founded ‘Soul Theatre’ in Melbourne, a company designed to ‘break down prejudices against the misunderstood, disadvantaged and disenfranchised’. Alicia also campaigns to raise awareness within the community of Acquired Brain Injury (ABI), which was the reason she participated in this documentary.
- The clip shows a re-enactment of the family gathered around Alicia’s bed at a critical time in her recovery. Alicia and her parents believe the family’s collective faith aided her recovery, with Alicia crediting ‘everyone’s power and prayer and, I believe, God’. Her father recalls that the family felt it was their vigil that was responsible for the improvement in her condition, with both Alicia and her father identifying the will to recover as an expression of God, a factor that has influenced Alicia’s commitment to give her life purpose.
- Both science and faith may have played a part in Alicia’s recovery. The film juxtaposes the family’s bedside vigil with the neurosurgeon’s assertion that modern medicine helped keep Alicia alive (he refers to her as Jane). For Alicia’s mother the neurosurgeon’s superstitious practice of knocking on wood allowed her to continue to hope even when the doctors were pessimistic about her daughter’s survival.
- Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) is an injury to the brain that can be caused by a number of factors including trauma, substance abuse and stroke. The long-term consequences of ABI can include concentration problems, memory loss, personality and behaviour disorders, and speech and language impairment. This can result in loss of employment, lack of social opportunities, isolation, withdrawal and impaired family relations. ABI is regarded as a disability.
- The clip shows Alicia seven years after her recovery. While her determination to live an active and full life has seen her resume a theatrical career, the accident left Alicia deaf in one ear, with a speech impediment and a tremor in her left hand. She experiences some memory loss and suffers chronic pain from spinal injuries. In the early stages of her recovery Alicia battled depression and twice attempted suicide.
