Any insight into what motivates Anna?
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TroubledWorld — 17 years ago(June 01, 2008 01:34 PM)
I have also read the book, maybe 15 years ago. I like sauzacash-1's analysis though I interpreted Stephen's comment (that Anna looked like everybody else) more from his than from Anna's perspective.
Louis Malle made many choices. First, he chose Binoche as a lead actress. Second, her photo is showed at the end of the movie, while Stephen is referring to the airport incident (book: at the end) AND is making his statement (book: at the beginning).
In the book, Anna looks "like everybody else" in the sense that she is not particularly gorgeous, at least not to a point that explains in itself the effect she had on Stephen and his life. It had to happen (to Stephen). In a sense, the movie is weirder. Stephen is lying to himself. Whatever he says, he still spends his nights and days looking at an enlarged picture of Anna (a 25-year old Binoche, not exactly an ill-favoured person!).
Another thing. In the book, Anna notices Stephen at the airport. More than that, she again tests her spell on him. I don't remember if there was physical contact, though. -
katerina-t-nemcova — 19 years ago(September 16, 2006 11:23 AM)
How do you explain Jeremys last sentence (about seeing Anna at the airport): "She was no different as anyone else."
It could mean that nothing in her apperance can reveal what damage had she done - or that she had no impact at Jeremy now - that he had freed from his posession.
What do you think? -
lornamd-1 — 18 years ago(September 07, 2007 06:14 PM)
Interesting and intelligent responses but my interpretation is a bit different. I think by hurting Martin she is - probably subconsciously - taking her hatred towards her brother out on him.
People who are grieving often blame themselves and feel anger towards the dead person especially when the death is self-inflicted. Anna says her brother killed himself over her - maybe to punish her - so this is going to leave her with a lot of grief and guilt. At the same time she wouldn't be feeling this pain if her brother hadn't killed himself so she is likely to feel very bitter towards him.
Martin looked very similar to her brother so I believe she is transferring her feelings for her brother onto him. Her brothers dead so she can't hurt him but I think beneath her calm exterior she has rage that she wants to get out. I didn't personally think that Anna was sexually abused by her brother because this was never stated but if she was that gives her even more reason to want revenge against him.
As for Stephens motives for the affair I think it is a mixture of infatuation with Anna, enjoying dangerous and forbidden sex and not being a very moral person. -
ColinHarvey — 18 years ago(September 16, 2007 11:06 AM)
"I interpreted it to mean that we are all damaged somehow."
I am currently studying to be a clinical psychologist, and, without getting too much into the mechanics and terminology of it all, what Freud (who was obsessed with sex) or Jung would have said, etc., I think that statement is true to some degree.
Re the topic of incest - without getting too much into morality issues, there are reasons why there are boundaries (ethical and legal) about incest. From a clinical point of view, it is usually very emotionally DAMAGE-ing (emphasis mine!) - witness Anna. Rarely is it fully, mutually consensual. It is usually the result of an act of seduction or sexual violence on behalf of one of the participants. Biologically, if a pregnancy results, chances of birth defects are very good if the parents of the child are closer blood relatives than second cousins. -
PoppyTransfusion — 14 years ago(January 06, 2012 07:09 AM)
How do you explain Jeremys last sentence (about seeing Anna at the airport): "She was no different as anyone else."
I took this to mean his list for her had passed, or at least diminished, and in a more realistic light she was not the object he had imagined and so desired at one time in his life.
my vessel is magnificent and large and huge-ish -
Nova_UB313 — 18 years ago(December 05, 2007 10:15 AM)
Anna was scarred, or 'damaged' as she stated herself. Damaged folks tend to live on the edge, they take risks and don't perceive the same kind of danger that a so-called normal person might see.
On the other hand, they might indeed see the danger and become attracted to it, a way of reliving the childhood traumas because they find comfort in them.
Much like Nicky in the Deerhunter. He was severely damaged by the forced games of Russian Roulette, so damaged that even when he was free of his duty to serve in the way, that he continued to play Russian Roulette. My thought is that not only did the poor thing lose his mind, but that the part of him that cracked wanted to become 'master' of the dangerous game that was imposed upon him. He wanted to 'own' it in order to make the trauma go away, or at least to make it more tolerable.
Demetria
"There's nothing tastier than food for thought." -
ecjones1951 — 17 years ago(May 25, 2008 06:09 AM)
I don't believe Anna has really loved anyone since her brother died. She says she has survived his suicide and everything after, but at what cost? She is a suicide survivor, yes. But her anger at Aston will most likely never be resolved. She also uses sex as a weapon and a bargaining chip. This is not uncommon among incest survivors but I don't think Aston actually consummated his desire for his sister. She feels shame at being so wounded as an innocent, and angry at Aston for hastening the end of her childhood.
I also believe suicide survivors (I am one) learn to blunt their feelings, and to avoid feeling vulnerable to many intense emotions. They reveal parts of their story over time only to people they decide to trust. They will take calculated risks, as Anna does, but only on their own terms. She knows she is more cunning (and smarter than) Martyn, and that he is besotted with her and will allow her that all-important freedom. She has Stephen by the short hairs at "hello," and knows that because he will never violate the terms she sets forth, they will not get caught.
Someone else asked about Stephen's character and how it is portrayed in the novel. Josephine Hart's book is only 200 pages long and it is written in Stephen's voice. (His character has no name in the book.) The first 30 pages of the novel are devoted to Stephen's autobiography. Things like medical school, marriage to Ingrid, the birth of his children and his election to Parliament, have always come easily to him.
He is not the introspective sort; his life follows a well-ordered course, and it's only occasionally that he pauses to look around him and see what a good life it is. But it's almost as if he is incidental in that life. He is a proud but distant husband and father. He can just stand there, a mildly attractive man of 50 who speaks well, and good things seem to attach themselves to him like magnets. No troubled waters anywhere. In the movie, the brief exposition of Stephen's coming home from work and the satisfaction that plays across his face as he surveys his pleasant, comfortable home summarizes several chapters in the book. This scene is so brief that when they meet, you have to take it on faith that
nothing
like Anna has ever happened to him.
It sounds hopelessly cliched, but Anna is the first thing that has ever made Stephen feel alive. I think Malle tries to indicate this with the scene in Stephen's home, and in the long stare when they first meet. The audience needs to understand this is not a love affair; each of Stephen and Anna's meetings are really exorcisms, with the adjuration that process implies. Louis Malle set himself a difficult task; so many people have the same questions about what led Stephen and Anna to the affair I'm not sure he completely succeeded. -
jim914109 — 13 years ago(June 17, 2012 10:52 AM)
I'm wondering about the symbolism of two things regarding Anna in the scene where Martyn walks in on her and Stephen while they are in the midst of the act.
One is, she is wearing a very heavy, chain-link-type, choker necklace - something that to me resembles a dog collar. It is something that would have had to have been selected deliberately for her to wear. It seems to be something that makes her appear to be a submissive, and I don't recall seeing her wear it in any other scene.
The second one is the red flowers that Anna brought to the apartment the afternoon of the tryst. The first time that Stephen had seen the apartment (alone) and got the message to meet there on Friday afternoon, the flowers in that spot were white and hanging sort of limply. When Anna brought fresh flowers in on Friday, she set out the vase again and put them in it. They hung limply as Anna left them. Later, when Stephen arrived, you can see in the shot as Anna walks by them to go to the door that the flowers have changed position and are standing up straighter. Again, later, during the interrogation of Stephen in the apartment, the flowers appear more tightly bunched and shorter than they were even when Stephen arrived. I do not believe this to be a continuity error, because when something like this is so obvious that even I see it the first time through, I think the director wants it to have some meaning. Why red flowers for the tryst, and why do they change from hanging limply to standing up?
Anyone care to comment on either of these issues?