Treatment 5/final treatment

The film begins with a woman looking through a photo album, with a variety of family photos. She finally stops at a photo of a young boy, which she begins to stroke. She is sitting on a sofa and surrounded by other objects, such as more albums, knick knacks and children’s clothes. There is a sound from somewhere out of the frame, and then a man, her husband, turns up. He asks her if she has eaten or if he should get her anything. She doesn’t respond, he comes and sits down next to her and asks her whether she’s okay, touching her shoulder. She doesn’t respond at all, so he just gets up and says goodbye to her. After he leaves, she suddenly gets up and seems much more bright and cheerful. She goes to leave, but then calls out to someone upstairs.

The camera follows her for a short while but then switched to her husband. He is looking very agitated in his office, and looks up to see a picture of his wife as his background on his computer. He puts down his pen, picks up his coat and walks out the door hurriedly. Meanwhile the wife is going home and holding a balloon, which has a note addressed to her son. She walks in the door, and goes into the kitchen but then freezes, confused, as she sees the room is filled with balloons. She notices all the messages attached to the balloons which are addressed to her son, and notices a photo of her son with the lines “Rest In peace, my beautiful son”. At this she remembers her son has passed away and then begins to cry, still clutching the balloon.

At this point the husband comes in; looking quite worried, and sees his wife crying. Initially he tells her to get up and tries to comfort her, but she’s unresponsive. He then begins to get angry and says that she can’t keep living like this and she needs to let go. He picks up a kitchen knife and stabs the balloons, violently bursting them. While he is doing this, she begins to sink to the floor and cries out in shock and pain, still clutching that balloon she bought. After he’s finished, he comes and crouches down next to her, and he tries to hold her, and she actually responds and hugs him, back.

The next scene is the couple. They go outside, holding hands and she is holding a balloon. On the balloon is a note saying goodbye and a photo of her son. Initially, she is quite reluctant but her husband holds her hand and helps her to let go of the balloon and they watch it fly into the distance. Then they walk back into the sitting room, and sit down together on the sofa from the beginning. He picks up the album that was left open and looks at the picture, but then she closes the album, once and for all.