Anne and her husband spent several decades together. Unfortunately, she suffered two strokes that deprived them of what made the flavour of their life together, but not yet of both of their lives. Not yet… The film shows how the couple changes, adapts, evolves and becomes a fusion cell in the final ordeal by excluding the others. The love bond that unites them will resist, reinvent itself with new gestures and words. Amour is a powerful film, directed by Michaël Haneke and released in 2012.
As said before, Amour relates the story of Anne and Georges, a French couple living in Paris in France. One day, when they were eating, Anne totally stopped listening to her husband and as a consequence, Georges was very worried. Anne suffered a stroke and she was paralyzed on all her right side. From this moment, their life would not be the same. Retired music teachers, Anne, starred by Emmanuel Riva, and Georges, played by Jean-Louis Trintignant, have a daughter, Eva, who lives abroad and visits them regularly.
When they came back from the hospital, Anne was sat on a wheelchair and fastly, Anne asked a crucial question to her husband: “Promise me one thing: don’t bring me back to the hospital, do you promise?”. Here, Georges said nothing and by making this silent promise, Georges chose a way of life very difficult for the future and there was a transition from the role of husband to caregiver status. He started to help her in all the little activities of daily life (take a shower, eat, go the toilet…). Even if she was in need, Anne said to her husband: “Now, take care of yourself” as a deep desire to not be just a burden for him. One evening, Georges came back from a piano performance and found Anne, wobbly, sat on the floor under the window opened of the corridor of their flat. Both realized of the totally degenerative nature of the disease she was suffering from. Later in the movie, Anne requested the family albums so as to remember when the memory goes away. Gradually, we understand that they were living alone, in private, in their flat and their nearly only contact was with the concierge who brings the groceries.
Shortly after, Anne suffered a second stroke that triggers a more significant paralysis and which led to a dysarthria (huge difficulty to open the mouth, articulate, eat…). Now, Anne could not walk anymore and was bedridden. More than ever, Anne’s disease was put in the center of the familial system and each member of this family had a different reaction. Because of the dysarthria, Anne had enormous difficulties to talk and Eva came back in tears after several minutes and could not accept the situation of her mother while Georges explained that they could do anything. While they realized her health was deteriorating more and more, the husband decided to hire a new nurse to take care of Anne. However, after only few days, he sacked her, saying that she is just incompetent as if he was the only one able to look after his wife.
Exhausted, Anne refused to drink and made him understand she wants to die. Georges threatened her to call the doctor in order to institutionalize her which would completely contradict the promise he made to her. He forced her to drink and then slapped her. This emotional moment noted a radical change in the way he will treat his wife later and the couple locked themselves even more tightly into their life together. Indeed, Georges did not want to answer the phone and Eva had to come to their apartment to see them.
One morning, when Anne was very agitated, Georges decided to tell her a story of his childhood before smothering her with a pillow. Even in a moment of death, their love seems to show through a moment of anger. Here, Georges commits a crime but fulfilled his promise of taking care of his wife until her death.
This film raises several questions that have touched us and that we would like to address.
First, it seems relevant to address George’s promise to his wife when she asks him, after his first stroke, never to let her go back to the hospital again. Georges’ silence says a lot, he does not nod, but we feel that he cannot consider leaving her alone a second time. However, this involves various problems and questions. The film is interspersed with scenes from everyday life, deliberately long to show the difficulty of the intimacy violated in everyday life. The first scenes still take place with a touch of humour, then as the film progresses they become harder, more difficult to watch. After his wife’s first fall, Georges got angry, it will be the first time he lost control of himself, but it will not be the last. By highlighting the accentuation of his troubles until his murder, the author can show the viewer the extent of the “caregiver’s burden”, the exhaustion that results from it and its consequences. This exhaustion is correlated with the extent of the troubles, the more Anne deteriorates, the more violence Georges’ actions are scattered throughout. They are sweet and in love at first, he will slap her and then end up killing her.
This promise also reveals a certain privilege. Indeed, her husband recruits two nurses to help him take care of his wife, a benefit that is not given to everyone. He will ultimately send them away, worried about the abusive behaviour they have towards his wife. No one will be able to take care of her better than him, and if he is no longer able to do so, then neither will the others. This problem gives way to another: What place can the family find in this love symbiosis? Either way, George will leave no room for others. Even if it means locking up his wife to guarantee his integrity when his daughter comes visiting. She finds herself left out and cannot find answers or understand her father. Despite the distance separating her from her parents, she visits them, however, she is not welcome, penetrating into this symbiosis that leaves no room for anyone else. His father will tell him “You have your life, let us have ours”. Hard, meaningful words, no one can do anything to help them anymore, they find themselves alone in the face of the disease and it is appropriate to end their lives as they began it: Together. It is also possible that by refusing to let anyone into their private lives, George is trying to protect his wife’s privacy, she does not want anyone to see her like that and he is the protector of this secret that they will keep together until the end of the film. He will decorate his deathbed, he will make her beautiful, surrounded by flowers, perhaps to continue to protect that integrity. The last scene of the film shows their daughter returning to their apartment after her mother’s death, she revisits this place that seems new to her and sits in her father’s chair.
Words we have learned :
a burden = un fardeau
to slap = gifler
the love bond = le lien amoureux
in private = à huis clos
to trigger = déclencher
Nahema Meyrignac & Jérôme Le Guen – M2 PPCECC