AMOUR (2012)

Life is naught but complicated choices but Love conquers all. This might be the tagline of Michael Haneke's AMOUR. Does this seem like the tagline of a happy film to you, one that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? I mean, just how hard-hitting can a film called LOVE be? Doesn't Love, in fact, conquer all? Aren't the lovers supposed to live their happily ever afters together? That's the thing, see, Anne and Georges Laurent have already lived their happily ever after together. This is the story of what happens later. Does it have the obligatory happy (or at least hopeful) ending of all films dealing with love? I am not sure. Maybe it does. I have seen it twice now. I am still not entirely sure what I saw.

Michael Haneke serves up a bruising stunner of a film in AMOUR, his 2012 Cannes Palme D’or winner about an octogenarian couple Anne and Georges Laurent (played by Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignante), and how they deal with Anne’s deteriorating health after she suffers a stroke. This is a magnificent film from a director at the peak of his form, displaying not just technical prowess, but an abundance of restraint, empathy, a thorough insight of his material and a boundless courage to follow his story to its frightening logical conclusion. This is a film of unadulterated brutality, not inflicted by one person on another, but of circumstances on our protagonists. All love stories need an ending; the film’s unique ability is to make us care about the love that Georges and Anne have for each other, even though we only see the dying last throes of this great romance.

This could have been a soulless, disturbing film. The reason it is instead an involving tour de force of life, death and everything in between, is Haneke’s humanism. He makes unconventional choices throughout the film. In one scene, he shoots Isabelle Huppert (playing Eva, the rather estranged daughter of Anne and Georges) and Trintignante talking about Riva's stroke for the first time, and we cannot see Trintignante's face at all throughout his monologue. Perhaps this is right-- this is a film which looks unflinchingly at life, and demonstrates a stout refusal to burst into hysterics or melodrama. Would the scene have benefited if Trintignante's enormously expressive face was on screen for the whole time, so that we as viewers, have a compass to guide us as to how WE should feel? I don't think so. The emotions are powerful enough to be let loose on screen without amplification. The audience will feel what the director intended them to feel without any guidance or direction.

The film may appear long-winded and pretentious, especially in long scenes where nothing much happens and the camera stays static and at a distance from the proceedings. But this is Haneke's directorial vision--- of allowing us to be invisible voyeurs in the little details of the lives of these two people. Every scene in the film is to a certain end and is not arbitrarily thrown in at a whim. Take, for instance, the breakfast Anne and Georges are having together after Anne’s first stroke, and Georges tells her about a deeply emotional experience he had at the movies when he was younger. A short, simple scene, two people engaging in what would seem to be rather mundane conversation, considering that these are movie characters who are always expected to wow us with their grasp of repartee. But the fact that this is a couple still very much in love with each other, still mesmerized by each other, both according each other the respect they deserve, comes through magnificently in their dialogue.

Anne: - That's sweet. Why have you never told me this?

Georges: -There are still many stories I've never told you.

Anne: -Don't tell me you're going to ruin your image in your old age?

Georges: -You bet I won't. But what is my image?

Anne: -Sometimes you're a monster. But you're nice.

Georges: - (smiling) Can I get you another drink? (Anne bursts out laughing)

A lot of the credit for making the characters come alive goes to the two wonderful leads, Emmanuelle Riva (this year’s fore-runner for the Best Actress Oscar) and Jean-Louis Trintignante, two veterans of French cinema, bringing a lifetime of experience to draw out their characters in full-bodied glorious form. These are performances rich in detail, powerful in their concision and ringing with truth, accepting the terrible messiness of life and the even messier business of slow death. 

A near-flawless ode to love, a touching movie made with warmth and courage. 9/10 for me.