Oscar Nominated Film Review: Amour

Director: Michael Haneke

Cast: Emmanuelle Riva, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Isabelle Huppert, Alexandre Tharaud, William Shimell

Rated: PG-13   Distributor: Wega Film    Running Time: 127 min.

In Amour, the Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke (Funny Games, The White Ribbon, Caché) focuses on an aging middle-class couple. Self-sufficient music teachers Anne Laurent (Emmanuelle Riva) and Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) lead retired lives filled with quiet mornings and dinners together while softly playing piano music fill their daily soundtrack to a slowly-paced lifestyle.  Together, the couple produced a well-meaning daughter (Eva) who is now middle-age. During breakfast one morning Anne halts silent, stopping mid-sentence and stares off into space; one moment frozen in time which Georges and the audience feel forever alter the lives of these two people. Anne has suffered a stroke and together the couple will have to navigate a new way of life. After an unsuccessful operation, Anne returns home (now confined to a wheelchair and impaired on one side of her body) with Georges, to which her first request, is to never return to the hospital again. If and when Anne is going to die, it’s going to be in the home that she shares with her husband and on her own terms.

The following two-hour story isn’t one of surprise or unveiling – most stroke victims go through similar paths where the end is ultimately always the same. Amour’s ending reflects the same from the opening scene but what the audience is treated and subjected to is a profoundly moving Drama that’s 100% honest.

Filmed inside one location – a Parisian apartment (small in nature and close-quartered), the feeling is far from claustrophobic. Cinematographer Darius Khondji has offered many static shots (often at long distances) to give insight into mental, physical and emotional life of our central characters. The living quarters have been stretch-out by the angles and framing effectively used, perhaps also showing the inner-separation which each character is feeling towards the other as time grows. Actions and even non-communicated inner lives jump off the screen during tight shots of each character’s face, which interjects the intimacy of the film and its cherished relationships.

Anne and Georges’ apartment starts off a brightly lit refuge but ends in a dimly lit prison. Images and symmetry to David Cronenberg’s The Fly are found as Haneke has plunged straight into the depths of questions and visuals, which many people flee far away from until presented with similar barriers head on.  Cronenberg’s therapy answer to his father’s diseased death (The Fly) asked it’s audience (like the girlfriend) to never turn away from hard-to-swallow images and decisions, even in fear. At the end and in the pinnacle of agony, moments will then become motivated. In Amour, our Director has chosen not to ever shy away from showing the audience the crippling effects of stroke victims, but has chosen to enhance the understanding that this particular illness has true and harsh effects to its patients and those around them – the camera has been asked to deeply hold moving pictures, frozen in time to prolong those effects and reactions.

Unlike many other films which rely on visuals or storytelling to keep elements moving, Amour’s strength lie in the Actors on screen. And there isn’t a single mis-step anywhere. Both principle Actors vanish into their roles so much that its hard to tell where one stops and the other ends. I’m not sure which is stronger – the overall transformation which Riva gives in her performance or the empathy and care which Trintignant is able to reveal as Anne’s caretaker.

Plainly stated, it was genius to cast Emmanuelle Riva, whose angelic face and innocent demeanor in Anne makes the effects of her illness that much more brutal to watch. We instinctively believe that Riva’s Anne is 100% true-to-life and that her artful subtly is the one thing which she holds closest in life; sadly, the first item to go. Riva’s ability to say everything about her character without saying a single audible sound in any moment is certainly not THE reason to see this film but one of the best. The performance is meticulous, calculated and crushing.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has created a man whose outward appearance is one of admiration and sainthood to those who visit the apartment but reality proves helplessness. Yet, it is the persistence of gaze that Trintignant is able to squeeze in Georges, which gives the overall performance one of despair but never of fully giving in. Georges is well aware what lies around the corner from the first time he faces Anne’s complications to the very last moment of the film without ever fully folding his hand – if a battle is going to be fought, our character will go down fighting. A particular scene involving a pigeon tests Trintignant to the point of breakage but never does his George give in until his goal is completed; thus how the film ultimately plays out to the point. Trintignant may be into his mid-Eighties but he barely skips a beat by proving his performance is stunningly energetic.

Directionally, Amour tackles both an outsiders’ perspective of concern and one of the internal ”do-the-right-thing,” as we see the daily struggles associated with the type of questions which all families must face when a loved one is afflicted with life-threatening health issues. True, in such subject matter it is hard to find tenderness and a silver lining in something like Amour, but that is the challenge in which the entire Production has found the answers – Amour’s Direction and Acting have tackled this with poise and craft. Haneke’s challenge in all of his films has been to push its characters to a breaking point and then push them further to see what will happen; this seen most prevalent in something like Funny Games or Cache. In Amour, Haneke never uses the images or symptoms in shock value but the usage helps to further push its audience into the World in which both of our characters live, and the scope with which Georges sees Anne in her continually disintegrating condition. Haneke has created a film which is so detailed in character, surroundings and visuals that even the symbolism turns garish at times because you take it as a living, breathing thing.

So is Amour a film which is good to see? Well, if you want unpleasant, voyeuristic and loss then you are in for a real treat. Haneke isn’t going to give you something sugar-coated because life simply isn’t that way; Audiences will find that Amour’s candor is cathartically cleansing. However, audiences will get beautiful moments of a rigorously unsentimental masterpiece from a director who always goes for in-your-face rather than under-the-surface. Yes, these moments will be few and far between, and minimal at best, but they are the pieces which really hit the hardest. Haneke’s influence on Amour are true form – poised, unfeeling and frightening cold but with a lasting effect felt long after the closing credits – much like that of losing a loved one.

Other notable Performances:

The concerned daughter, Eva (played by Isabelle Huppert) brings the sinking reality of the outside World every time she arrives unexpected to the hours. Huppert’s drama, distress and self-absorption are all drawn into the actress’s performance and add a wonderful sense of outrage and struggle to the character mix.