A real sense of anguish

Rating: 10/10 (5 March 2019)

This is not an objective review. I am only expressing feelings I had watching the film and that stayed with me for a while afterwards.
I want to talk about Melanie (Fred's wife). There were so many themes explored throughout the movie. The most captivating for me was the subtle build up throughout the movie to Fred's wife fate. Even in the scene towards the end of the film when we first see her, we know only so little. Fred starts talking to her, we see her from away. And little by little the camera moves and we see the true state of her face, the terror in her eyes, the million screams that she is producing inside of herself. We see her face once again during the last recital of the "Simple Songs". Which makes her a symbol, in which all the aches and harsh realities explored so far can be expressed.
We know from Lena (Fred's daughter), from a previous scene, the type of life this woman was living, the sacrifices she was doing. Wasting the good years of her life knowing that her children have no one but her, while her husband is completely absent. She experienced unbearable "anguish" during her life.
But all of that is one thing and being in that final state of hers is completely terrifying. What despair and hopelessness she must be feeling? One automatically assumes that people in such state are not fully conscious or feeling a peaceful sadness. What if she is completely conscious. I keep thinking about Paloma Faith's horrifying screaming scene in the airplane and that a much worse screaming and feeling of terrible anxiety is happening inside Melanie's head. I was completely brought to a state of terror from the thought of what is going inside her mind.