Tuesday, March 19, 2013

A Love Story For Our Times.

(WARNING: This article contains spoilers about the movie Amour, as does Wikipedia, if you think about it. If you intend to watch the movie, do yourself the favour and watch it instead.)

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.

 *********************************
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.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

The Sunday Fear

Just spent a weekend here in Ballarat, with Karen coming up to visit for the first time. It was a wonderful weekend spent exploring cafes, art galleries and warming up the credit card in quaint clothes shops, secondhand bookstores and craft markets. We spent the evening watching the seriously moving Amour, which is the subject of another post later, I'm sure.

It came time to say goodbye, and we had a long, slightly teary farewell before she drove off towards the city lights and I entered the quiet solitude of my house once more. She had filled it with her raucous laughter and noisy conversation and bustling ideas, she had organised the heck out of the house, she had whipped the kitchen into submission.

And now, devoid of her personality, there is now only the quiet. And the disquiet.

For as long as I can remember, I always suffered from Sunday evening blues. I think I am not alone in this regard - many friends have called it by many other names - 'the Sunday Dread' and more recently, I have heard some Irish friends call it 'The Fear'.

What is this commonality that makes us hate Sunday evenings? Is it the work and school that the week brings ahead for us? Is it because play time is over, and now we must ready our serious faces, our thinking brains, our labored smiles for the week ahead?

I can't explain it. A friend, for example loves his job. Like loves it. And you could see why - he is the perfect fit for his work, and the company ethics and people are all fantastic, and in line with his values. He excels at what he does, and yet, come Sunday evening, the Fear will sit in his heart in an inexplicable way.

I wonder if it has to do with conditioning, and how Mondays always meant school for us growing up. Another week of homework, assignments, difficult teachers, complicated friendships and overwhelming expectations.

And it is an almost universal, potentially irrational dislike for Mondays. I remember the Bangles complaining about Manic Monday and The Boomtown Rats confirms in their song 'I Don't Like Mondays' that they want to 'shoo--oo--oo-oo--oo--oot the whole day down'  and of course, the iconic Garfield comics.



I truly wonder if perhaps it is just a first world problem, where relaxation is confined to the weekends and it's go-go-go the rest of the week.

Personally, having worked shift work in Emergency, I can say that perhaps it really has far less to do with the day of the week than with the actual day your work starts. If I have more than two days in a row off, and then a stretch of work days ahead of me, then the evening before work becomes my new Sunday evening.

Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, and it is a privilege to be able to do meaningful work. I think perhaps sometimes we want to put off putting on the responsible adult clothes just for that little while longer, and hit the snooze button on seriousness, just one more time.

Have a good week ahead, everyone.
 

Thursday, March 7, 2013

The Race to Fitness

Being in a regional centre and away from the hustle and bustle of the big smoke, one of the luxuries that I have found myself with is that of more time.

There is a saying about the 'country mile' which is an expression given to how a mile in the country feels longer than a mile in the city. Let's just say I have been blessed with 24 'country hours' to spend each day.

One could do many things with 24 country hours - one could study fervently (hah!), brush up on absent cooking skills (now, let's see - how did I manage to burn that water again?), catch up on one's newfound hobbies (see previous post) or reacquaint oneself with that lifelong love-hate relationship with the sadomasochistic habit - exercise.


I will reiterate this - I am not the sporty type. Unless Scrabble or Monopoly has been recently inducted into a physical sport, I am not inclined to fitness. As a friend loved to say, the only exercise I ever got was when I 'jogged my memory, leaped to conclusions, jumped for joy or pushed my luck'.

If there is one thing I will do sporadically though, is I will jog. I blame this on my college years in Singapore when not only did you have to excel in your studies, you had to pass a fitness test as well - the NAPFA (National Physical Fitness Award) test as they call it, which still sends a shiver down my love handles when I think about it.

Anyway, to this day, when I feel up to it, I will bring myself for a jog. 'When I feel up to it' being a liberal expression meaning anything from oh, once a week to about once a month. The body always goes into a certain kind of shock when I start running - it's like 'Oh, where are we going? Are we going for a nice stroll along the river, huh? Wait, you're moving too fast, wait! Wait!!'.

Word travels quickly from my brain to my legs warning them of forthcoming punishment and the legs and the rest of my body soon organises its Unions and then go on strike. A strike looks like this - profuse sweating, your thighs burning up in protest, your heart pumping in your ears, your ankles threatening to give way at any moment, your chest wall sending out the occasional pain signals to trick you into thinking you're having a heart attack. All this is done to remind you who the real Boss around here is.

I have decided to take up jogging again here in Ballarat, and one of my favourite places here is the Steve Moneghetti track around Lake Wendouree here. It is a 6 km run around the scenic lake, and I was determined to finish the 6 kms in my six months here in Ballarat.
"'Bye, lady!"


I actually surprised myself and managed it in my second week here. Granted, there were cute old grannies in their four-wheelie frames waving and winking at me as they strolled past, and little girls in their pink helmets yelling out 'Excuse me, lady!' as they sped by in their pink tasseled tricycles, but you know, I finished the 6 kms. Of course I needed to be brought by ambulance to the Emergency Department for IV rehydration and electrolyte replacement after the run, but hey, I finished the 6 kilometres.

Okay, so none of the above happened, but it sure felt like it did.






Having completed the run around the lake, I had it in my head that I was now up for a marathon. Well, here's what Google taught me - that running actually puts three times the stress of normal everyday activities on your body, in particular your knees.

I am reminded of this line from the Baz Luhrmann's 'Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen' song - Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone. I am trying to be kind to my knees. I love my knees, though they have taken a lot of courting again to convince them since my ski accident of 2003. 

Since completing the run around the lake, I was confident that I could repeat the feat on weekly basis, at least once, but strangely enough that has not been the case. I experience what every runner calls "the wall" at 3 kilometres, and then I either be kind to myself and walk the rest of the way, or punish myself, and push through to the end, although my body would hate me for it.

I don't think it is healthy to always push through because there is always a great temptation to equate exercise then with unpleasantness and oh, you know, self-torture. Believe it or not, we are all ultimately Pavlovian creatures and if that association keeps happening, then there is a great chance that we will end up forsaking exercise once more and returning to that pleasurable Mistress which is television, and chocolate cake. (Mmmm... chocolate cake... *drool*)

Well, I finally timed myself today, having been happy just to complete the 6 kms at any rate for this past month. It took me exactly 30 minutes to complete 6 kilometres. Multiply that by the length of an actual marathon (42 kilometres) and it would take me three hours and thirty minutes to complete a marathon, under the presumptions that i) I am able to maintain running at a constant rate over the 42 kilometres and ii) I don't die first (which is a distinct possibility).

The world record for a marathon is 2 hours and 3 minutes and 38 seconds. This guy from Kenya could have finished the race, bought a Coke and popcorn and sat through Run Fatboy Run while waiting for me to cross the finish line.

Okay, enough with this demon that is Comparison. My pledge these six months is not to overdo it to the point of injuring myself, and to quit when I'm not enjoying it. I will run because I want to, and I will stop when my body tells me to. 
I will be kind to myself, because as the rest of the Baz Luhrmann's spoken song puts it

Don't waste your time on jealousy,
Sometimes you're ahead,
Sometimes you're behind.
The race is long, and in the end, it is only with yourself