Love is a film directed by director Michael Haneke that won the Palme d'Or at the 65th Cannes Film Festival and the 85th Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Michael Haneke is a director who is passionate about violent themes, and much of his work is known for its brutal, naked narrative style, with chilling elements. For example, "Piano Teacher", "White Ribbon" and other films.
In the movie "Love", violence has regressed to a plain life. Seventy-year-old Michael Haneke created a film with a simple story framework and a warm atmosphere to create a film with a very different style from before.
Poster of "Love"
The story of the film is simple, the main story is: Anna and Georges are a couple in their eighties, both retired music teachers. One day, Anna suffered a sudden stroke and was paralyzed in bed after a failed operation. Georges took good care of Anna, but was never able to calm her pain. Eventually, Georges covered Anna's head with a pillow and ended her life.
Such a simple storyline, if you interpret this movie from the content, it is too shallow. This article will analyze the charm of this film in depth from three parts: narrative style, detail art and symbolism.
The pace of this film is very slow, there is no unified storyline and contradictions and conflicts through it, but through the series of a large number of life phenomena that have no inevitable connection, the whole of this film is formed.
This prose culture narrative style weakens the drama of the story, and there are not even a few poignant dialogues in this film.
The film presents trivial daily routines such as eating, chatting, washing, listening to music, flipping through photo albums, visiting students, and neighbors helping to buy daily necessities. These sparse and ordinary events are not necessarily related, but we can see the true feelings of the characters in their hearts.
When the student Alexander came to visit and asked about Anna's physical condition, Anna interrupted him, "Is it okay to talk about something else?" From this sentence, it can be seen that Anna does not want to mention her paralysis, and she is doing her best to maintain her dignity and dignity.
The couple received cDs and letters from Alexander, and when Georges finished reading them, Anna asked to turn off the CDs alexander had sent. Because the content of the letter wishing Anna a speedy recovery touched the pain in Anna's heart. The dignity she tried so hard to maintain was exposed by the students.
The artistic temperament of the music has been cultivated for a long time, and it has not resisted the ravages of disease. For Anna, the wheelchair is bound not only anna's body, but also Anna's mind. And Anna's true feelings in her heart are presented through the daily life of Georges helping her bathe and eat.
Director Mikhail Röhm once said that "cinema has more expressive details than any other art." "And the meaning of the details is not the details themselves, but that when the ending comes, recalling the details in the development of the story, not only gives the rationality of the ending, but also pushes the emotion to the high point with the end of the story."
When I saw Georges holding the white pillow and holding Anna's head, I believe many people were as frightened as I was. Obviously a second ago, Georges was still telling Anna about his childhood, how could he suddenly end her life with his own hands? Georges loved his wife so much, why did he kill her?
Such an ending may seem abrupt, but it is not. Looking back at the two details in this film, we can see the inevitability of Georges personally ending Anna's life.
The first detail is that Georges returns early from his old friend's funeral and finds Anna slumped in front of the window.
Georges helped Anna get back in her wheelchair and closed the window with a heavy heart. When he tried to say something to Anna, he was interrupted by Anna and asked him to push himself into the living room.
Although the film does not clearly indicate, from the location of Anna's fall, Georges's expression and Anna's reaction, we can infer that Anna has jumped off the building to commit suicide at this time.
The second detail is a sentence anna said as she flipped through the album.
At the dinner table, Anna suddenly asked Georges to help her get a photo album. As Anna flipped through the photos page by page, she said a sentence: "Life, so long, long road." ”
The subtext that comes out of Anna's mouth is actually saying, "I've lived enough." In Anna's mind, she had almost lost her motivation to live.
Looking back at these two details, we may no longer feel that the ending is abrupt, and we can even understand Georges's behavior a little.
(1) Georges' nightmares are manifestations of his inner fears
In this film, Georges had a nightmare. In the dream, Georges walked into the corridor and found that the entrance to the corridor was sealed by a wooden plank, and then he was covered with his mouth and nose from behind. At this point, the camera gives a close-up of Georges' face—a look of pain and a look of fear.
What does this dream mean?
First of all, the entrance to the staircase, which is sealed by wooden planks, represents the current situation of Anna being bound.
Second, the truest first feeling of being covered in your nose and mouth is the fear of facing suffocation. The dream, which occurs after Anna's failed suicide and her fall from bed, expresses Georges' horror at Anna's search for death, fearing that Anna will leave him forever.
(2) The two releases of pigeons are the symbol of Georges' love for Anna
The pigeon that flew twice to Georges' house is the most emblematic place in the film. Although both pigeons were released by Georges, there were differences between the two times.
After discovering the pigeons for the first time, Georges did not hesitate to release the pigeons, which expressed his most sincere blessings to his wife, who he hoped would regain her physical freedom.
The second time the pigeons were released, after Anna had left her life. This time, instead of the same last time, he first caught the pigeon with a piece of cloth and then held it in his arms, as if he were holding his dead wife.
But in the end, the pigeons are still being released, which also symbolizes that Anna finally got rid of physical and mental torture and gained the ultimate freedom.
In a documentary-like simple and calm style, "Love" presents the warmth of an old couple taking care of illness in their twilight years, as well as the fatigue and struggle under a long illness. Georges knew that Anna did not want to suffer from illness and self-esteem, so he chose to complete Anna by killing her on a pillow.
Through the lens, the director explores the connotation of love in the ultimate way. In marriage, it is the norm for husband and wife to support each other and rely on each other, and it is duty not to leave or abandon, and the most rare thing is the fulfillment of life and death decisions.