Poll

Does Georges die in the end?

Yes
16 (76.2%)
No
3 (14.3%)
Unclear, could be either way
2 (9.5%)

Total Members Voted: 21

Author Topic: Amour - interpretations of the ending  (Read 18417 times)

shuabert

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Re: Amour - interpretations of the ending
« Reply #10 on: February 22, 2013, 11:08:13 AM »
Although I am the sole "no" vote, I do not think that George "ran away".  Rather, he was just following his imagined wife out of the house and didn't come back.  Rather than think the whole scene was in his mind, I think it was just her in his mind. 

Ah, I understand. The theory is that when we see him follow Anne out of the apartment, he is actually leaving the apartment at that point. I misread people's comments to mean he went on the run after killing her. It makes more sense your way, and in a way it sort of a nice ending, but I'm still not sure where he would go or why he would just leave (unless he walked out somewhere and died outside the home). The last shot is highly suggestive that the father is no longer around.

St. Martin the Bald

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Re: Amour - interpretations of the ending
« Reply #11 on: March 01, 2013, 12:15:11 AM »
There was no tape around the doors - the bedroom was open and you could see in there when the daughter was walking around the apartment in that last scene.
I believe he died - it doesn't even have to mean suicide - he may have known he wasn't going to live long after she was gone (many older couples often pass this way) or possibly he killed himself but the scene of him and her leaving together was definitely in his head or simply symbolic of his death.
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Re: Amour - interpretations of the ending
« Reply #12 on: February 24, 2014, 04:50:41 AM »
My view is that he died in his sleep in the room next to the kitchen, having 'sealed' Anne in their bedroom as the nearest thing he could manage to giving her a proper funeral.

As he drifted off to his final sleep, he imagined Anne in good health, and they 'went out for a walk' together, effectively the moment when he died. I feel that in his own mind at least, this is a hopeful, optimistic belief, another illustration of the power of human love. He believes that he has done everything he can to protect her during her illness, that even killing her was a (desperate) act of mercy to cut short her agonies and indignities. He has prepared her 'death-bed', and then his life is also effectively finished. He lies down and dies, but does so in a positive belief that he and Anne can be together in death (but without any mention of a spiritual or religious Heaven).

When the emergency services break into the flat, the smell is immediately apparent before they break the seals on Anne's tomb. I believe this is coming from Georges' body in the room next to the kitchen - which is open. We never see the crews enter the kitchen or (at that stage) that there is even a room there. We only see the result of Georges' final act of love for his wife.

flyonthewall

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Re: Amour - interpretations of the ending
« Reply #13 on: February 11, 2017, 01:37:42 AM »
I too was at first confused by the ending, but then in dawned on me.  The incorrect assumption is the smell in the apartment is his wife's. With her bedroom window wide open and her doors taped, her smell is not the one smelled by the police in the main area of the apartment.  It is the smell of the husband who has died in his small room off the kitchen.  When the officer walks in her room and asks if her window was open, the other officer said it was and it was wide open with a big breeze blowing in. That's the key clue. When that officer had to open the window in the room outside the bedroom where he saw the other taped doors, he was smelling the husband.  Sadly, or maybe not so sadly, both died.   

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Amour - interpretations of the ending
« Reply #14 on: February 22, 2017, 04:50:12 AM »
Didn't George leave the apartment definitely, with a suitcase and all, in the previous scene?
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