As Christmas draws near, many couples are already preparing for their Christmas dates, maybe having a romantic candlelit dinner or planning to watch a movie about pure love. This is why my cousin is recommending a “healing” romance for couples today ~ a film that won the 2015 Palme d’Or at Cannes, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, and won every major film festival award. As Christmas approaches, many couples are already preparing for their Christmas dates, maybe having a romantic candlelit dinner or planning to watch a movie about pure love.

This is why my cousin is recommending a “healing” romance for couples today ~ a film that won the 2015 Palme d’Or at Cannes, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, and won every major film festival award.

“The whole film doesn’t say a word about love, but it’s full of true love. Those who don’t believe in love and those who have illusions about love, come and see this.”

But the film is also controversial because the love it conveys conflicts with Chinese values. Our ideal love is “to hold the hand of the son and grow old with the son”, “to have one person in mind and never leave each other”, “to live together and die together”.

These poetic lines only tell us about the beauty of love, but they do not tell us what love looks like when it grows old, and they do not teach us what to do when our lover grows old. This film is also not educational in any way. It makes you think without telling you the answer, it just calmly shows love and death, and just gently tells you a reality.

The film’s characters are few and far between, and it is set in an ordinary three-bedroom apartment, almost exclusively in a small room, but you can feel the power that lies beneath the calm. The main characters are an elderly couple who, like all loving couples, go out to concerts and talk about their family life together, and you can feel the love welling up in their eyes even though they never say it out loud.

George was not shy about giving compliments to his lover, coming back from concerts with the words “You look beautiful today”. Anne, even with her grey hair, can’t help but feel like a teenager in love with her lover’s sweet words. They were the ideal of what any couple should look like, in love and in love with each other. They are what all young people want to look like when they grow old, graceful and relaxed, watching the clouds roll by. However, the harsh reality did not spare the couple in their old age – Annie was inevitably struck down by an old age illness.

After an operation in hospital, half of her body was paralysed and she was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. This was a heavy blow to her, who had always been a proud woman, and was further tormented by the pitying and grieving eyes of her students and daughter. Anne asked George not to send her to hospital any more, and he did so for decades. So George took on the burden of caring for Anne himself, denying even his daughter’s request to look after her mother. But sickness does not get easier with love, and Anne’s condition worsened and she even began to suffer from incontinence. She is on the verge of collapse, how can she bear to be in such a mess when she is always so perfect in front of others.

The caregiver George hired was a big-hearted person who didn’t care about Anne’s sensitive and fragile emotions and fiddled with her like a doll, pulling out a mirror so Anne could see how embarrassed she looked. Anne is completely desperate and wants to end her life as soon as possible by not eating or drinking. George offered her water, but she wouldn’t swallow it even if she held it in her mouth. George’s gentle coaxing and harsh threats were ineffective, and he was forced to slap Anne hard in the face.

Worried about his lover’s condition and tending to her emotions, George was so tormented that he was driven to a frenzy by Annie’s desperate attempts to die. But he soon regretted it, as every second he spent in her bed was a torture, and yet he struck her, who was defenceless.

Annie is also sobered by the slap in the face; she cannot selfishly abandon George and leave him alone in the world, and eventually swallows the water she holds in her mouth. Just when we all thought that Annie would actively recover and live optimistically, the film suddenly takes a shocking turn – George ends Annie’s life by his own hand ……

I remember when I first saw the film, I was shocked by this scene, and I still remember it vividly. At the time, I didn’t understand the significance of George’s move, I just thought he didn’t want to take care of Annie anymore and didn’t want to see her in a sorry state. It was only in recent years when his own cousin’s old man began to fall ill that he began to understand how George felt. The frustration and heartache of watching a loved one suffer and not being able to do anything about it, of watching a once hale and hearty person being afflicted by illness, it would be selfish to force the other person to live well and live for themselves at this time.

To be able to let go is what true love is all about. There is a scene where George returns from a funeral and sees Annie sitting on the floor with the window wide open, and Annie panics and asks George why he is back so early. Anne had only recently been paralysed and already did not want to live, so you can imagine how painful it was for her afterwards. George saw through her and told her that caring for her was not an ordeal, that she was not a burden and asked. “What if you were me?”

It is also worth thinking about what we would do if we were George and if our loved one’s family was clearly showing signs of distress and lightheartedness. And Anne’s answer speaks to her cousin’s heart. “I don’t want to think about it.”

Yes, I don’t want to think about it, it’s too heavy a question, it’s too cruel to imagine, I just want to cherish every moment I have with the other person at the moment, I don’t want to part with them and I can’t bear to part with them. But sooner or later the day will come back, and when it does, what will you choose? My cousin can honestly say: I can’t do it. There is a song that goes. “The most romantic thing I can think of is to grow old with you.” But this film tells us. “The cruellest thing I can think of is to watch you grow old.”

Watching this film may inspire you to think about love. Is it possible to accept that your lover will grow old? Can you bear to see your lover grow old?