Karen and I went to watch Amour last Sunday, Michael Haneke's film which won the Oscar for the best foreign film this year and was also the winner of the Palme d'Or, the highest prize at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.
This unassuming movie deals with two difficult topics - that of growing old and suffering with illness, and the realities of caring for a loved one who has been debilitated by disease. These are themes rarely explored in any movie, yet so poignant and relevant given that we are moving towards an ageing population.
The Movie
The first thing that you will notice about this movie is the absence of a soundtrack. This lends to the realism of the movie, and it is this silence that haunts - long after the credits have rolled (without music) and throughout the movie as well.
Anne and Georges are two retired piano teachers in their eighties. They have one daughter living abroad but are managing happily by themselves in their home in Paris.
They return from a concert of one of Anne's former students and talk about how proud she is of him. They have been married for many years and are great companions together, and you see it as he stands in the bathroom doorway while she removes her make up. He tells her she looks beautiful tonight. She smilingly asks him what is wrong with him, as all wives do when their husbands surprise them with a compliment.
The Beginning of The End
The next morning, they sit over breakfast and discuss the day ahead when Anne suddenly blanks out for about half a minute. Terrified, Georges tries to snap her out of it, and ambles to the kitchen sink to get a wet cloth and dab her face with it. He leaves the tap running as he leaves to call for help because she is still not responding, when the kitchen tap suddenly stops. He returns to find her back to her usual self, and they have an argument as to what had just transpired.
A visit to the doctor and tests reveal that she has had a small stroke. She goes for a procedure to clean out the arteries in her neck but unfortunately returns completely paralysed on her right side due to failure of the procedure.
Georges takes her home in a wheelchair and looks after her, where she makes him promise that he will never send her back to hospital or a nursing home. At one point, she confesses that she does not want to continue living. He becomes her dutiful carer, however, and they enjoy a life with some meaning - conversations, meals, helping her with her exercises, a visit from her former pupil. There is a new normal for the couple.
The second thing you will notice about this movie is that it all takes place within their home - every minor drama unfolds within the confines of their living room, bedroom, kitchen, toilet. The home almost becomes part prison and part refuge for the both of them since she has had a stroke.
The Daughter
One of the side dramas which unfold is true of any family - the absent children who return, laden with guilt, but also with motive. Their daughter Eva returns with her partner, and tries to talk Georges into moving Anne into a nursing home, but he angrily insists that he has promised Anne that was not an option.
There is a scene where Eva sits next to her mother on the bed and talks about her own problems - of how her current partner had lost money in the stock market, and how they needed money to invest into property. I thought this scene was particularly sublime, because we are shown where Eva's heart lies, a daughter caught up in her own problems, with very little understanding of the daily struggles of her parents. She is trying to be caring of her mother's present suffering, but has one eye on her own future.
The story progresses with Anne suffering a second stroke, which leaves her demented and babbling incomprehensibly. Georges continues to look after her despite the strain it puts on him. Here was his wife, once proud, dignified and independent, now dependent on him for her every need, like a child.
There is a scene where he is trying to convince Anne to drink some water, but Anne, with some manner of understanding, spits it out in almost juvenile defiance. Before he realises what he is doing, Georges slaps her across the face. She stares back at him angrily, and he is helpless and guilty all at once, trying to deal with both the burden of trying to genuinely care for her and her stubbornness of wanting to choose her own fate.
Their daughter returns on another visit, and in his own moment of childish defiance, Georges locks up the door to the bedroom where Anne is resting to prevent Eva from seeing Anne and passing more passive judgement on what's best for her mother.
Eva finally gets to see Anne, and confronts Georges, who says that he is doing his best to honour Anne's wishes, and in fact had hired two nurses to look after her.
The Nurses
The nurses were depicted quite accurately and with a sharp eye on how subject we are to the kindness of strangers once we are debilitated by illness.
One is an experienced caring nurse who gently looks after Anne and tends to her needs tenderly. The other is a young girl, who treats it as a job and is quite gruff in handling Anne. Georges angrily dismisses the second nurse, cursing that one day she suffers the same fate in the hands of another when she herself is defenseless.
The climax of the show takes you by surprise. Anne, in her dementia, calls out in pain, and Georges rushes to her side. He checks to see if she has soiled herself, and then sits by her bedside and placates her with an ambling story of how he was at a camp when he was a young boy of twelve. He talks about the postcards he used to send home to his mother, telling her what a miserable time he was having, and sighs with a smile at the memory of it. His soothing voice seems to placate Anne, who stops calling out.
Georges then grabs the pillow next to her and smothers Anne, while crying into the pillow above her. She struggles for about twenty seconds before she stops breathing.
All this time, I was secretly thinking to myself, man, this show is going so slowly. One scene later, and I am crying uncontrollably, trying to stop my shoulders from heaving. It was the overwhelming human-ness of it all that got to me. It was a terrible act, but you could tell that paradoxically, he did it out of love.
The film ends with Georges buying some flowers to place around Anne in the bed and then taping up her bedroom door, which now becomes her tomb. He sleeps in the guest room, and it is not long before he sees an apparition of Anne, who is healthy once more, and finishing up the dishes before telling him to hurry up and get dressed, they were going to be late. Georges is a little confused, but obediently puts on his coat, and follows her out of the house.
The director does not reveal what happens to Georges, as he does not wish to place judgment on his actions. I think that it is indeed impossible for us all to be the judge or jury of his actions, and manage our lives based on our own moralities and understanding of life and suffering.
The film ends with Eva walking into the now empty apartment, sitting in the chair where her mother used to sit, quietly considering the house.
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I think it is an amazing film, that causes us to pause and consider our own humanity. With ageing partners and parents, this is a show that will resonate with all of us.
We want to label things good and bad - Eva is selfish and unfilial, but has her own very real worries as well. Surely Anne has lived a good long life and don't all old people die eventually, with the young to take their place?
Georges was the picture of caring husbandly love until he effectively kills Anne. But was it an act of mercy? Is there value in living if there is no quality of life?
We are quick to judge the actions of others, but have very little understanding about the context of their circumstances.
It's never black or white, it's often grey, and we tread on these eggshells each and every day. It is these complexities - this pain, this suffering, the small victories, the surrender - this is what makes us human.
Now if you've read this far, could I please convince you to go see the movie anyway. Make up your own minds about this.
