Amour?

I can’t honestly urge anybody to see “Amour,” the French film that won the Oscar for best foreign film. It’s difficult to watch. If you want to see it–and it’s a fine movie–I’d encourage you to go with others who can talk it through afterwards. You can’t see “Amour” without thinking hard about your life.

The story is of two aging French music teachers. The wife, Anne, suffers a stroke. We watch as she declines in agonizing slow motion, and her husband Georges attempts to care for her. We see all the indignities, the terror and frustration. Nothing is romanticized; there are no compensations. These two clearly love each other, and the title, “Love,” is not ironic. But it’s not inspiring, either.

This kind of “amour” isn’t sweet or touching or motivating. This is love full of dread and duty.

That’s why you need people with whom to talk it through. The film presents the end of life for Georges and Anne the way they experience it: as a prison with no exit. But does it have to be that way? They see suicide as the only option. But there are actually many choices that they refuse.

They choose to be alone in their plight. They are not on terribly good terms with their daughter, who lives far away, but she wants to help, and offers to help. Georges rebuffs her.

He is reluctant to look for help, beyond a nurse who comes three times a week. Georges doesn’t get respite. He sees no one–no friends, no professional helpers. Hospice is not on board.

These two have built genteel, dignified lives. They love music. They inhabit a charming apartment full of their comforts. They have made it their castle. Facing terribly hard reality, they pull up the drawbridge.

You sense that all their lives they have cultivated independence, even from each other. Anne bristles against being cared for. She won’t listen to music, even a CD sent by one of her students, a successful pianist. The exigencies of care force Georges and Anne as close together as two humans can be, but there is little or no laughter in the way they embrace their indignities, only duty. And love. Genuine love.

But love is not enough. They need help, all kinds of help. They need community. Even with the best of help, what they go through is devastatingly hard. But hard is not the same as miserable. And they are fundamentally, abjectly miserable.

“Amour” pushes you to ask, “What would I do differently?” Lots of people have created charming, dignified lives that go well as long as they are healthy and have enough money. When they lose their health or their money, they may try to pull back into themselves, like a snail retreating into its shell. Georges and Anne do.  It’s just too undignified to admit people into their castle, to disturb their calculated life. They are stoics in the classical sense: their well-cultivated virtues will have to see them through.

It’s better to be undignified. It’s better to ask for help. It’s better to laugh and cry together. It’s better to be weak. It’s better to be dependent. It’s better to have friends. It’s better to rely on your family.

It’s still hard.

A Separation

I’d like to recommend “A Separation,” an Academy Award 2011 movie made in Iran. The film is not violent but it is extremely intense. It’s about a quarreling husband and wife, living an urban, car-driving, apartment-dwelling life. Children’s school examinations and the care of an Alzheimer’s-afflicted parent are the crucial issues–not Israel or, in fact, any kind of political or religious ideology.

On one level, this is a movie about how the dissolution of a marriage affects people–regular, fundamentally decent people. At a deeper level it’s about willfulness and stubbornness, which means it speaks to all of us, whatever our circumstances. I won’t give away the ending, which is a surprise that sticks in your mind.

While the movie is not particularly religious, it’s interesting in depicting an Islamic society. Just as is the case in America, religion touches people in many very ordinary ways. The devout and the non-devout act quite differently in some ways, and in others are just the same. It’s not a pro-Islamic movie. I would say, however, that it reflects a fundamentally Islamic view of family and marriage, perhaps because of the makers’ convictions, and perhaps simply because that is what the artists had to work with in making an Iranian picture.

From what I can tell, Islam is a religion profoundly in crisis, trapped in a dead-end. Nevertheless, the Islam behind this film is deeply humane, and its convictions about humanity are both strongly felt and relevant to all people. It spoke to me.

Learning comes from many sources, including some that we find surprising. That is one more reason to take care not to demonize others.