So why does Lena do what she does towards the end and leave the letter for Nelly?
shareShe couldn't take the reality of life after the war. She kept finding out more friends and family were dead. I forget her words in the letter exactly, but I believe that was the gist.
shareIt made no sense to me. Maybe it was just her short hair and pants, but I suspected that she loved Nelly and didn't want to live without her. Unfortunately, we don't know anything about their relationship previous to the war.
shareThey were sisters.
shareIf so, I missed that part, along with everybody else here who calls her Nelly's faithful friend.
shareI thought they were good friends, not sisters, but I'm not sure why would the other take her life?
shareThen why was Nelly the sole heiress?
Lord Arthur Goring: To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
They weren't sisters; Lene would have been eligible for the inheritance too then...and this is never mentioned. When Nelly asks early on if Lene is paying for her care, Lene says no, you are, you have inherited $ because no one else in your family is alive.. so def not sisters. Friends
share[deleted]
i agree.
The way to have what we want
Is to share what we have.
Where did you find that???
shareI think their may be a clue earlier in the film. I have not read the book, but I suspect that it may fill in the details of why Lene so detests Johnny.
Remember when Nelly says something to Lene about wanting to find Johnny? She asks Lene if she has seen him. And Lene immediately dismisses it out of hand. She says something I forget now, but it has the tone of, "Who cares about Johnny. I have nothing but contempt for him."
OK, so here's the stretch.
What if, after both Johnny and Lene PRESUME that Nelly is dead... what if they had a romance?
You see, it fits the emotion and behavior of Lene perfectly.
In a similar way, the film IDA has Red Wanda looking at a little boy's photo and then jump out a window. I don't know if this has already been made public and I'm just stating the obvious, but I chose to connect dots there as well.
What if Red Wanda had mothered a child, and then left the baby boy to be raised by her sister? That would explain Wanda's behavior as well.
Again, it has probably also been debated and resolved but I haven't bothered to see if that theory is true or not.
I think their may be a clue earlier in the film. I have not read the book, but I suspect that it may fill in the details of why Lene so detests Johnny.
I think they were all just very good friends. Lene has that reaction after she has seen the divorce paper in the records from the floor. She has found out that Johnny betrayed Nelly and is visibly upset. I also posted the following on another thread to hopefully help dicipher this relationship:
Also... at the beginning, in the hospital, the doctor asks Lena why she, a Jewess, came back. She doesn't answer but fixes her stare on Nelly. Also, when Lena tells Nelly that her family is dead and starts to name friends, Nelly asks her about Esther. Lene says that she has not found her. She goes through records and photos (using a magnifying glass) of the victims - trying to find her, and I believe she does find her name. She leaves abruptly and goes out in the hallway to smoke. She has tears running down her face. There is also a group picture of them with some other women that Lene gave the doctor so that he could see what Nelly looked like before. They all look very close. Perhaps Esther was Lena's significant other. Or... perhaps they were just friends. Or a sister? An unknown but for sure, they have both lost a lot.
I think, if anything, Lene was in love with Esther. From the way Nelly emphasizes her name in the beginning to Lene's reaction at finding out Esther is dead to Lene's eventual fate, I think it was Esther whom she loved.
shareLena was called Mrs. Winter by her housekeeper, so at some point she had a husband, whom we can probably guess was killed somehow.
Lena and Nelly were just close friends, I think. Obviously, from the photos we saw, part of a group of friends before the war.
Lena did look a little stereotypical lesbian but i don't think that was the case. There were several opportunities when they were alone and Lena did nothing to indicate she was interested.
I'm glad in a way.
Throwing a lesbian character into movies or tv where they have zero significance is starting to become very tiresome. It's like there is a quota on how many gay characters need to be in films in Hollywood it seems like. Token even.
I'm glad European film doesn't feel the need to add tokens to the story. At least not as much as the quota driven US industry.
I got the feeling she was in love with her and thought they would start a new life together in Israel.
(Were they in the camp together, maybe even they were lovers?)
She ended up doing what she did when she realized that Nelly was still in love with her ex husband and wanted to go bak to her old life and would never feel that way towards her.
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I think Lene had lost too many people from her life. She was in despair. Nelly was the only person she had left, her reason to keep living. But despite all her warnings, Nelly seemed determined to pursue something with Johnny. It was too much for her.
That's an in-story reason. I think there's also a behind-the-scenes reason. They didn't want Nelly to have anyone to help her. It's more dramatic if you have to worry about her being in this situation all alone without helpers. How will she escape it? What will she do? and so on.