Anna

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.

If you want better insight into the characters, you should read the book!! It's by Josephine Hart and it is really engrossing. She has another book called Oblivion that I really like as well.

mmm..interesting what you say.
And probably right if you think of that scene with Anna's mother at the dinner table.
She was telling Anna how much Martin looks like her brother.
And the fact that she spotted her secret relationship with Stephen.

How do you explain Jeremy´s 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?

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."

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.

Personally I think Anna (perhaps unconsciously) chose to wreck another family just as hers had been.

my vessel is magnificent and large and huge-ish

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?