Aging is a topic that seems far away and close at hand.
When relatives get old, how to prevent "children want to support but parents don't wait"?
When you are old, who will you be with and what kind of twilight will you spend?
There is a movie recommended by Hu Ge that made Hu Ge cry, and it opened up this life experience that we can't bear to face, but will face directly——
Love
Amour
Director: Michael Haneke Screenwriter: Michael Haneke Starring: Jean-Louis Tradignan/ Emmanuelle Riva/ Isabelle Huppert/ William SimmelRelease Date: 2012- 05-20 (Cannes Film Festival) / 2012-10-24 (France) Duration: 127 minutes
Director Michael Haneke won the Best Foreign Language Film at the 85th Academy Awards for this film.
Not only that, the film also won the Palme d'Or at the 65th Cannes Film Festival, and it is no exaggeration to say that he is the best of the year.
The starring Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignante are the two best actresses in Venice and Cannes and Berlin, respectively. Their acting skills make the film even more shocking.
Two veteran actors play a married couple in their 80s - Anne (Emmanuel Riva) and Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignante) , both retired intellectuals molecular.
Their daughter, Eva (Isabel Huppert), also has a family and lives abroad, occasionally visiting.
Although they are "empty nesters" who have lived together all the year round, Annie and Georges accompany each other and live a very romantic retirement life.
In their spare time, the two of them went to listen to Annie's former student's concert together.
After returning home, the old man also sincerely praised his wife: You are very beautiful tonight.
The romance that remains to this day is enviable.
However, it only takes one exception to make a happy life overshadowed.
The next day, the two were having a warm lunch together as usual, when Annie suddenly couldn't move like an evil spirit.
There was no response to her husband's call.
Georges anxiously tried to ask for help, but after a while Anne got better on her own, as if she didn't remember anything.
It was from this day that the love of this old couple began to experience an unprecedented test ...
Doctors said Annie's presentation was symptomatic of a stroke . If surgery is not done, the condition will worsen.
However, the operation failed, and Annie was then paralyzed and unable to move her right torso.
Instead of asking her daughter for help, Georges brought Annie home to take care of her alone.
Obviously, this is not an easy task.
Annie couldn't take care of herself. She needed her husband's help for walking, sitting, going to the toilet, and rehabilitation training.
Fortunately, love endowed them with miraculous strength and bond—
Georges was caring and never complained; Annie maintained a positive attitude and worked hard to recover.
They still read books together, talk and laugh warmly, and their lives seem not to be much different from before.
However, this semblance of calm was quickly shattered.
Compared with Georges' extra hard work and Anne's physical illness, the psychological changes of the two have had a greater impact.
He is also an old man in his 80s. Although Georges's intention to take care of Anne's life is very sincere, the pressure brought by this responsibility is undoubtedly unbearable for ordinary people——
He began to have nightmares, dreaming of being stuck in water, and putting a hand behind his back to cover his mouth and nose, making him slowly suffocate.
The more painful of the two was the sick Annie.
From the early days of her illness, she had the seeds of giving up in her heart, and she didn't want to let herself and her husband suffer.
Seeing the things she once had lost one by one, how bitter but powerless she was.
Facing the proud student who came to visit, Annie smiled and refused the greeting of the other party's illness, but asked the young man to play a tune for her.
But after the students sat beside the piano and started to play, the picture was still dark and depressed, except for the sound of the piano and the silence of the three.
The thoughts of the audience will also drift away with the blank space of the film, thinking:
Anne, who used to be a piano teacher, how would she feel when she listened to the beautiful music that she could no longer play?
What is even more disturbing is that not only has the talent passed away, but even the dignity of Annie's life has gradually lost.
She became incontinent, began to speak incoherently, and began to let out inexplicable howls in the gaps of her drowsiness.
In the end, because of the unbearable pain, I kept shouting "pain" and "mom"...
Georges, who was dedicated to protecting his wife, could not be as firm as before when he saw his lover lingering on like this.
In the early days of her illness, Annie murmured as she flipped through her past photo albums:
So beautiful, life is so long.
However, when disease accelerates the aging process, it not only erases beauty, but also brings unseen pain...
Is such a life too long for Annie?
Annie, who has high self-esteem, did not want to be seen in the tragic state of her illness, and even did not want her daughter to visit.
She doesn't want you to come to see her at all. You two live yours and we live ours, okay?
And when the new nurse roughly brushed her hair and forced her to look at herself in the mirror, the old woman's remaining dignity was completely shattered.
She tried to go on a hunger strike and spit out all the water her husband fed, but the always gentle Georges actually slapped her this time.
This slap also hit Georges hard, making him realize that his patience was gradually fading.
In such a lingering, the desire to retain the love of the other party will eventually become hurt.
Another day when Anne fell ill, Georges sat beside the bed and told Anne about going to summer camp when he was a child:
Before he went, he and his mother agreed to write a letter every week: if he was happy, he would draw flowers; if he was unhappy, he would paint stars. At the end of the day, the postcard is painted with stars.
After putting Annie to sleep, Georges gently and slowly raised the pillow;
Suddenly, he pressed the pillow against Annie's face, pressing it desperately and forcefully with all his strength .
Annie's legs kicked helplessly a few times, and then everything fell silent.
This is undoubtedly the most controversial plot in the film, causing countless audiences to be shocked, shed tears and sigh.
But in the face of the cruel fate of his lover being slowly killed, Georges' behavior may instead be a kind of softness.
Like releasing the pigeon that was trapped in the room, he "released" Annie .
You won't believe it, there are pigeons flying in from the patio, this is the second time I finally caught it, it wasn't difficult at all, but I let it go
Georges bought bouquets, cut them out one by one, and put them on Anne's bed.
He was faltering, his fingers were shaking, and he was obviously very weak.
After finishing everything, Georges, who was slumped on the bed, suddenly heard noises in the kitchen.
He leaned out and saw that Anne was washing the dishes, waiting for him to go out, as she did before she got sick.
Despite knowing it was an illusion, the husband followed his wife away without hesitation.
The film leaves the death of the old couple blank in this romantic form, and finally, the daughter in mourning sits in their former house——
The people of Sri Lanka have passed away, but the entanglement of love and life still continues and remains unchanged.
We can see the variants of love and love in the film, see life, aging, pain, death, and the insignificance and powerlessness of people before all of them.
Some netizens said that Haneke photographed the hidden fears in everyone's heart: there is no greater sadness than old age, but I and the people I love will eventually grow old one day.
The data shows that by the end of 2019, the proportion of my country's population aged 65 and above has reached 12.6%, which is still 1.4% away from the "aging society"; what follows is that the number of "empty nesters" in my country will increase this year. to 120 million people.
Ensuring that the old can be supported and depended upon will surely become the focus of future social governance.
As far as everyone is concerned, whether they can still have long-term companionship and real care in their twilight years may be the biggest concern in their hearts.
May we and our loved ones grow old with dignity surrounded by love.
*The author of this article: Wen C
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