Any insight into what motivates Anna?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Damage
tierfrucht — 21 years ago(March 06, 2005 11:34 PM)
Any insight into what motivates Anna?
Why she indulges in such a dangerous affair?
Does she love Stephen?
Does she love Martyn?
Despite several viewings of the film (I own it), I'm still unsure. -
abrien74 — 21 years ago(March 09, 2005 12:09 PM)
She's compensating for the something that was lost when she was younger. She and her brother had an incestuous relationship and her brother's suicide really messed her up emotionally. I don't think she ever really got over it, hence her incestuous affair with Stephen. She loves Martin, but the lust-factor, the appeal of danger is missing. Anna and Stephen never really "make love" per se, it's always quite raunchy and animalistic and never conventional. The only time you actually see them share emotions and share genuine time together and appear like a "couple" is the first time they meet in their new apartment that was rented solely for their sexual moments together. Yes, she loves Martin. I don't think she loves Stephen, but I think he was filling some sort of void that was lost when her brother died. When Martin dies in the end, it most likely changes her and she goes back to an old, much safer boyfriend and a much more boring and conventional existance. I guess she thinks that her incestuous affairs and passion for things she cannot have seem to lead to death
This is just my take. I haven't seen the film in a few years. -
carmen_67 — 20 years ago(May 24, 2005 06:56 AM)
Not a particularly bad interpretation, but I disagree that somehow Anna was ever normal, that her decisions are based upon some pristine time in the past. She had an incestuous relationship. Taboo does not limit her sexual passions (potentially other passions), apparently never has. I don't believe she goes back to normal because there is no normal. The abnormal satisfies. Apparently satisfies with such an enormous force of will that other considerations (more conventional marriage and love) do not even inhibit. These characters exemplify the extreme of compulsion. They are compelled beyond their better judgment into acts which are inherently brutal and cruel. They are the archetypes of hedonism. I cannot help to watch them plot their own destruction over and over again. I find this film very hard to watch and I find I cannot turn away.
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iliiliescu — 20 years ago(August 20, 2005 12:43 PM)
it depends on what u understand by outgoing. if u refer to the sex scenes it is a little(maybe for u more), but i liked it and i adore jeremy.
the subject is outgoing, i mean this obssesion between jeremy and julliete.
allthough i must say that i didnt like anna's character at all. i mean why did she have to sleep with both(with the father and the son)? that sucks!
SMILE!TOMORROW WILL BE WORST! -
umischeide — 20 years ago(December 22, 2005 02:03 PM)
i don't think anna was abnormal. i don't see incest as abnormal. abnormal is in contrast to some "normal" that is too hard to define. there are lines that we draw as to what is "normal" and what is "abnormal" but the concepts are completely arbitrary, they are socially constructed. i admire anna for being so strong and so selfish, to take what she wants and walk away. that takes guts.
i think the analysis about her using both stephen and martin to fulfill something lost is correct. but i don't see anything wrong with it. i think it's clever. maybe she wasn't completely aware of her own actions up until the point where she rests her head back and closes her eyes as martin falls down (i love the fact that he didn't scream, that would have ruined it). but she was trying, knowingly or unknowingly, to fill a void for passion, something most of us give up in exchange for comfort and simplicity. complacency. -
apt4620 — 20 years ago(December 22, 2005 06:49 PM)
'Normal' is socially constructed, yes. Thus, as far as I can see from looking around, incest is not normal. In our society, it is viewed as deviant behavior (ie, different from the accepted norm).
Anna is beeped up because of the experience. If it were truly normal, she would be too. I think she's partially warped from the loss of her brother, the closest person to her, and clearly the only family member she felt she could rely on, and partially from the violation of the socially accepted family norm, which is that you are not supposed to be beeped by your brother.
I don't see that Anna is capable of love. People fill needs for her. But she doesn't seem capable of forming healthy connections. She never really gives herself to any of her lovers, except for physically. Emotionally, she is stuck in the loss of her brother. No one can fill that void for her.
No one ever really gets close to her. The men who desire her are captivated by her physical beauty, her intensity, aura of mystery, and obvious independence. They want to possess her precisely because they sense they cannot. She never reveals herself, nor does she ask for anything, which makes her the perfect choice for men who want to project their own physical and emotional needs onto her. And she allows them to engulf her, as her unstable and abusive brother did. Because that is what she understands love to be.
Incest violates boundaries. Please don't romanticize it as some misunderstood casualty of a puritanical society. Her brother beeped her, helped make her emotionally dependent on him, and then killed himself. That is not some sweet love storythat's deeply screwed up. And so is she.
And so is Stephen, not that we really know why, actually. But in a screwed up way they are perfect for each other. We all have unfulfilled, gaping needs. Anna's life is consumed by them; Stephen represses them until he met Anna. Then they self-destruct together, and it is intoxicating to watch.
I love this movie. And I love the book. Both are worth exploring. -
umischeide — 20 years ago(December 25, 2005 07:54 PM)
apt4620 said: "Incest violates boundaries. Please don't romanticize it as some misunderstood casualty of a puritanical society. Her brother beeped her, helped make her emotionally dependent on him, and then killed himself. That is not some sweet love storythat's deeply screwed up. And so is she."
i think the sad part about anna's relationship with her brother is that she didn't die with him. maybe that would have saved everyone some heartache later on. i personally detest boundaries, even it is incest. i hold nothing sacred. i understand that there are laws and guidelines in place that we mustn't cross but they make life boring and tedious. that is why watching two people self-destruct together is intoxicating because, i think, we want something different for ourselves also. -
tightspotkilo — 20 years ago(January 24, 2006 10:16 AM)
Let me say off the top that I have watched this movie twice, once when it was released, and again just recently, and both times found viewing it to be a profoundly uncomfortable depressing experience. I have decided that Louis Malle intended that response.
The movie and the novel are two separate works of art. Novels are not easily adapted to feature films. There's just too much texture and layering in a novel to get it all into a 2 or 3 hour film (if at all). Screenwriters and directors, in this case Malle, pull those things out of the novel that they want us to know. Since he didn't delve all that deeply into nor dwell all that much upon the details of Anna's history, what her demons might be, or what might be motivating her, we may be able to infer that in Malle's interpretation those details weren't all that important in the overall scheme.
And likewise the author Josephine Hart told us what she wanted us to know. And maybe that background on Anna can be found in the novel, I don't know, I haven't read the book, and I don't intend to. The story is too uncomfortable.
It's not uncomfortable to me because of the incest in Anna's background, nor because of what happens to Martyn, per se. It is because of the reckless abandonment of these characters. You know from the getgo that nothing good is ever going to come from this coupling, and you know that they ought to know it too. But they can't seem to help themselves. That makes it a sick, pathological, coupling. Therefore, aside from Juliette Binoche's raw sensual physical beauty, there was nothing else enjoyable on any level about watching these characters indulge themselves, and it is with a sense of dread that the viewer watches the story and ultimate climax unfold. At least that's how it was for me. I just don't find 111 straight minutes of dread and impending doom pleasant.
We know that Anna's history holds the reasons why Anna did this. But what of Stephen? Why demons drive him? -
stlouisgirl777 — 20 years ago(January 28, 2006 09:08 PM)
Something to think about? Remember in the movie when Anna tells Stephen the details of her brother's deathshe said she went to Peter and told him to beep herjust like her brother had accused herwhy did she do that? Perhaps she was making herself the "whore" her brother thought she was? I think that's why she was with Stephen too. Martin was her brother, Stephen her Peter. She did say to Stephen, when he tried to break the relationship off, that she couldn't marry Martin and not see Stephen too. At the end of the film Stephen is in this little apartment with this huge photograph of her and his son. He also has to relive the damage done to him and those he loved. I do agree the movie is hard to sit through. However, what a brilliantly rich movie.
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tightspotkilo — 19 years ago(May 14, 2006 09:41 PM)
"I am surprised that the pivotal quote from the book/movie hasn't been discussed in this thread regarding the character of Anna.
She says: 'Damaged people are dangerous. We know we can survive'"
I missed that line, or at least missed the significance of it when she said it. It certainly reveals a level of self-awareness in what she does.
Binoche was good in this film.
Get the facts first - you can distort them later! -
lornamd-1 — 18 years ago(October 05, 2007 08:26 AM)
"i admire Anna for being so strong and selfish, to take what she wants and walk away. that takes guts"
You might not admire that kind of "gutsiness" so much if you were on the receiving end of it.
Personally I think that having the strength to walk away from things that you want because you know they are wrong takes more guts than giving in to every urge that you have regardless of who it hurts.
"I don't see anything wrong with it"
Are you kidding? You don't think that sleeping with your fiances father is wrong? What if someone did that to you? What she and Stephen did was deeply wrong. I admire loyalty more than selfishness and they had none. They were extremely weak and unpleasant people in my opinion.