A simple movie with great underlying meanings

Rating: 9/10 (22 February 2009)

This review is basically to point out the main/more apparent underlying meanings of the film.
1) Life could be good or bad now, but you'll never know what you're going to get. Life is unexpected, life is like the unpredictable storms which kept the whole film running. Life is of storms. e.g. The hurricane which kept changing directions when Benjamin's diary was read aloud by his daughter.
2) Take the chance and do something you like, because in the end, life is emptiness and nothingness - "everyone will end up in diapers". e.g. The commissioner's wife taking the chance to get involved in an affair with Benjamin and had the rendezvous of her life. e.g. Benjamin going on the sailing trip to see the world and thereafter had many of his first experiences.
3) Appreciate everything for what they are - some people are born to make buttons, some dance, some are mothers. Life never goes the way we want it to be, we have to accept things for what they are. e.g. Benjamin was born odd, his father couldn't accept it, didn't love him as he was, thus he led a guilty life and had a sad ending even though he was very rich. The black woman loved Benjamin as he was, and was happy all her life even though her job was to take care of old people.
4) Life sometimes isn't about hard work, it is also about luck and taking chances  "Life is determined by the decisions you make, and those you didn't". e.g. The commissioner's wife tried to swim across the English Channel when she was young and ambitious, only to give up because of a storm. When she grew older, her ambitions began to fade away. But when she grew really old, she tried again to swim across and she made it.
5) "I was struck by lightning 7 times in my life." ~ Old man on wheelchair. Interpretation A: Everyone will encounter roughly more or less than 7 disasters in his/her lifetime. Interpretation B: This statement could instead be "I could've been struck by lightning 7 times in my life." Perhaps this old man ever witnessed situations where others were struck, when they were doing very routine or ordinary things, like feeding the cow or getting the mail. He keeps thinking that those people who were struck could've just been him, because he could've just done those routine tasks too, therefore he said that he's just lucky to be alive. The nostalgic lightning 1-second clips and the old people in the nursing home, all serve as teaching material for Benjamin, to take life easy.