Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012): Austria/ France/ Germany

Reviewed by Whitney Murdy. Viewed at the AFI Fest 2012.

The French film, Amour, proves that you don’t need a young engaging protagonist to carry a film, as this movie does it with an old married couple where one suffers from dementia. After Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) has an attack, she is taken ill and her husband Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) promises to care for her in a story about the ultimate test of love. They become so isolated in their home that they even alienate their daughter and prevent her from the current situation. This film embodies everything about “till death do us part” and is remarkable that an 80 year old man is so interesting to audiences.

Alfred Hitchcock said that “Movies are life without the boring parts.” This movie shows every detail of this couple’s life but nothing feels boring watching them finish all of their food at dinner because it feels real. It is a story of true love and despair told in the most realistic way possible. The camera is put on a tripod and does not move for an entire scene, even if one leaves the room, it is like you were standing there watching this couple live and die. The only music we hear is diegetic, as Anne was previously a piano teacher. There is that sense that this film does not need a sweeping score to bring about any emotion, it’s all in the acting and the story. Through a series of long shots and a slow pace of editing, it feels that the film is just trying to hold out for the inevitable. And when that moment does come, the pace still does not pick up.

American romance movies are designed to make you cry or leave you with a warm feeling inside and plays up on the idea of true love. Titanic is a tragic love story but hardly believable, along with all the films adapted from Nicholas Sparks novels (see The Notebook). Amour is something fresh, yet old. It lets you feel the struggle day to day with them, journey through remembering their past and leaves you holding on to the end. Any man or woman will be totally grounded after this heart-wrenching yet heart warming film.