The Psychologist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross highlights five stages of the typical mourning process: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It is clear to see that Marie does not follow this process. And although she clearly expresses denial, her denial is not shrouded in isolation. This is first shown in the dinner party scene as she discusses Jean flippantly and in the present tense, Ozon using a study of Marie's friends' reactions to show that something is not right. This runs contrary to the writings of both Freud and Kubler-Ross, who observe the social withdrawal of those in self-denial, as if the only way to maintain the mourner's alternative reality is to cut him or her from all outside factors which have the potential of ruining the fantasy. This scene is difficult to watch due to Marie's matter-of-fact delivery with no hint of melancholy, and the friends' inability to confront Marie or force the issue of Jean's death.<br /><br />Marie's grief seems to be marked as atypical by her willingness to face these outside factors, which comes across as almost stubborn rather than genuinely self-deluding. Under normal circumstances, such a high level of social interaction would appear to lead to a greater sense of reality for the bereaved. However, Marie is armed with several defence mechanisms which she uses when directly confronted with her true situation. In the first instance, when confronted by Amanda after the dinner party and after a lecture, Marie uses changes in language to switch the tone of the conversation. It seems that she can feel more comfortable and isolated when speaking in English, and perhaps she was able to use the same technique before Jean's disappearance to exert her own individuality within her marriage. This use of language draws certain comparisons to isolationist behaviour seen in psychological studies of grief and bereavement, for example Colin Murray Parkes' elusion to "the widow who spoke in a whisper for fear of making reality too real".<br /><br />Later in the film, as Marie's defences begin to get breached, she resorts to both anger and insults in order to keep her personal reality from being destroyed.. she transcends her calm veneer for the first time when confronted about Jean by Vincent, and when confronted by her mother-in-law she resorts to petty insults. This series of reactions seems to come to a head when she returns to Lit-et-Mix to face the final reality of her husband's death. Having seemingly run out of ways to deny her situation, Marie breaks into laughter. This can be read either as a confirmation of Marie's descent into madness or as a prelude to her final moment of acceptance as played out on the beach in the final scene.<br /><br />Despite these deviations from established psychological writings, Marie's behaviour does in part correspond to some of Freud's theories as set out in "Mourning and Melancholia", in particular when he describes mourning as the process of "reality-testing"6. Marie's actions can be seen as a way for her to examine her new emotions and social surroundings since the loss of Jean. In fact, the film could be seen as a study in the way in which Marie explores several alternative realities: the awkwardness of her fledgling relationship with Vincent displays her hesitation in leaving her personal reality of a monogamous life with Jean, as if she is performing experiments on herself, constantly testing the limits of the world she has conjured around herself. This is expressed visually by Ozon in studying Marie's physicality, the way in which she interacts physically with her surroundings. The most explicit "reality-testing" scene occurs when Marie is lying on her bed and is caressed by six hands, those of Jean, Vincent and herself: It can be seen almost as the transition sequence between two of her realities. Ozon also frequently uses reflections of Marie's face in order to convey the idea of her physicality, literally highlighting the reflective nature of her self-discovery: in order to truly recover from the loss of her husband she must re-identify herself, perhaps also coming to terms with her own mortality, the subject of which is most explicitly conveyed in her conversation with Vincent about Virginia Woolf. It is also hinted at during her conversation with her mother-in-law: the two of them trading insults over who will be the first to end up in a psychiatric home, while Ozon makes studies of the mother-in-law's aging features. The scene in which Marie passes out when seeing a cemetery could be seen as a reaction to Jean's death, but could equally be interpreted as her reaction to her own mortality.<br /><br />However, despite these references to the psychology of loss and bereavement, Ozon's film cannot simply be read in this way. The film is as much about life as it is about death. In a way, the presumed death of Jean runs merely as a sub-plot in the story of Marie's self-discovery. The essence of the film is clearly based around Charlotte Rampling's central performance, which remains ambiguous but powerful throughout, reflecting complex ideas about attachment and loss, and leaving behind several unanswered questions over the reasons for her actions as well as what results from them. Ultimately, Ozon's film is intended to remain open-ended, as displayed in the final scene where Marie runs towards a mystery man, perhaps reflecting the ambiguous nature of life and death in a secular society in which death is no longer associated with notions of an afterlife or ritualistic coping mechanisms intrinsic in Christian interpretations of mortality.