Please note: This was screened in May 2015
Michael Haneke picked up his second Palme d'Or (and his first Oscar®) for this incredibly moving tale of love and death. It begins with the corpse of an old woman - her head wreathed in flowers - alone in her Paris apartment. The film that follows tells us what happened. It follows the story of Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) and Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a happy couple in their 80s whose lives are thrown off course when Anne suffers a series of strokes: the more she deteriorates, the more Anne as Georges knew her starts to vanish before his eyes. How do you cope with the sudden deterioration of a loved one, and what role does love have in it all? Totally devastating but completely unmissable, this is intelligent, masterful filmmaking at its best.
Julian Abel, Consultant in Palliative Care at Weston Area Health Trust and Weston Hospicecare, will introduce the film and lead a discussion on the issues it brings up afterwards.