Severe seizures
Heartbreaking scenes in Céline Dion’s documentary
Céline Dion shows a lot of courage with her documentary.
© Amazon Prime Video
“I Am: Céline Dion” promised brutal insights into the singer’s battle against stiff-person syndrome – and she delivers.
The most depressing moment occurs towards the end of “I Am: Céline Dion” – the 56-year-old is shown in full length as she suffers a severe seizure that hits her with full force. She is just sitting on a massage table laughing when the first signs of the impending seizure appear in her feet. Just a few seconds later, the star can no longer move.
As a viewer, the singer’s pain is almost unbearable. During the attack, she is only able to whimper in pain, while tears run from her bloodshot eyes; her face, which is initially motionless, is twisted into a grimace. Then her upper lip begins to twitch uncontrollably, and her whimpering swells into screams of pain.
That is why she provides these intimate insights
The star’s ordeal lasts almost ten minutes before her muscles relax and she can slowly sit up again. What follows, however, is at least as bad for her: “Every time something like that happens, you feel so ashamed and so… I don’t know how to express it. You don’t like giving up control of yourself, you know?”
So why does she give such a detailed, unsparing look at her ordeal? She explained this in advance of the documentary: “During this absence [von der Bühne] I decided to document this part of my life and try to raise awareness of this little known disease to help others who share this diagnosis.”
With “I Am: Céline Dion”, the singer regains the stolen control over her life – by not letting the illness get her down, but by being able to use it for something positive.