I was 2 when my grandmother had a stroke and was paralyzed waist down. The entire family was devastated. Today, I could only remember her in a wheelchair. Whenever we went anywhere with my grandparents, we always got to take a handicapped space. I never noticed people staring. And in Berkeley with a large disabled students program, I barely noticed.

When I was 11, my favorite teacher had the motto, \”Don\’t be normal, be different!\”

And that is probably why I loved the movie, Twin Falls Idaho. It was one of the most saddest, dreamlike, heartbreaking films I have ever seen. Sure it follows a predictable plot and is full of pretentious symbolism. The summary – a love story between a woman and a pair of siamese twins, one of which is dying – seems mundane. (Although some probably would be curious if they share one set or have two sets of genitalia!) Yet, what the film does, unlike other they-are-different-from-us movies, doesn\’t dwell on the weirdness. We are taught to be compassionate to the brothers as they live in the city. And that makes me wonder why we treat those that are different so…much like outcasts. Sometimes even before we meet them.

There is one scene toward the end that breaks into a dream sequence–almost like a silent film–with the two brothers as two separate indviduals riding on bicycles round and round each other, waving goodbye.

There are no sad endings, only endings where the storyteller stopped telling the story.