In 'The Years' by Het Nationale Theater / Eline Arbo, based on the successful book by Annie Ernaux, five actresses tell the life of one woman. She grows up amidst the rubble of the Second World War and frees herself from her middle-class environment. She becomes a writer with a keen political and social awareness. Using photos, songs and news reports, she talks about emancipation, being a woman, class differences and individual opportunities. In separate scenes, musical, happy and melancholic memories are evoked. By following one life, we see the world change. All images will disappear. Death erases everything in a second and so we have to save something from the time where we will never be again.'
On class differences and individual opportunities
Award-winning and critically acclaimed masterpiece by French author Annie Ernaux
The Years' is the masterpiece of French author Annie Ernaux that has been showered with awards and jubilant reviews. De Standaard der Letteren called it a 'dazzling history of a time and of a life'. For director Eline Arbo, it is dream material. The book brings together the two lines that she explores in her work, on the one hand the 'sociological' view of 'Weg met Eddy Bellegueule' (2020) and on the other hand the powerful women as protagonists of 'De uren' (2021) and 'Yerma' (2021). Arbo: 'When I read 'The Hours' I knew immediately: this book was written for me. Annie Ernaux's style is so striking and universal that all those memories resonate in me too. Her images evoke a feeling of nostalgia, but at the same time also shame and anger.'
