Not a Hollywood film so it won't win Best Picture, but count it among the greatest achievements in cinematic history.
AMOUR (2012)
Directed by Michael
Haneke
Les Films du Losange,
PG-13, 127 minutes, in French with subtitles
* * * * *
Here’s what happens in the Oscar-nominated Amour: a woman in her 80s dies. That’s it–no
guns, no fast cars, and no dazzling special effects. And, yet, it’s easily the best
film of 2012–though it has no chance of winning that category–and it’s not too
early to apply the term “classic” and rank it among the better films of all
time. (For the record, director
Michael Haneke’s 2009 film The White
Ribbon also belongs in that category.)
The film is essentially a pas de deux between Georges (Jean-Louis Trintingant) and Anne
(Emmanuel Riva), elderly, married, haute
bourgeois soul mates that have shared decades of music, teaching, books, art
collecting, and mutual aloofness. When Anne blacks out after a glorious recital
by her former pupil Alexandre (Alexandre Tharaud), the couple is faced with the
reality that Anne is dying. It is here that amour
(love) meets its ultimate test. What would you do for the one you love most
when the Grim Reaper beckons? The film raises all manner of questions we spend
our lives ignoring. When do we hold on, and when do we say goodbye? What will
we endure for a few more moments? How do we judge when the line is crossed between
tolerance and intolerance? How much care can even the most loving caregiver
provide before the giver snaps? Is that person honor-bound to respect the
wishes of the dying? How much is the receiver willing to accept? When does the
loss of personal dignity become so repugnant that death becomes merciful?
Georges quickly learns that there are no easy answers to those questions, and
that the only guidelines are internal and instinctive. When daughter Eva
(Isabelle Hupert) shows up to ask “serious” questions about what to do, Georges
abruptly dismisses her.” What sort of serious
discussion do you wish to have?” he demands. Eva has no answer; her own life is
as complicated as most are midstream–financial woes, a rocky marriage, career
worries, self-absorption….
Georges’ retort sharply slices through the nostrums and makes Eva
confront truth.
If you get the idea that this film is depressing, you’re
right. But it’s also many other things: touching and tragic, wise and helpless,
shocking and poignant, funny and gut-wrenchingly sad. Does this sound contradictory? Isn’t the life
cycle equally so? We are born without awareness and in a state of total
dependency, and in such a state many of us leave this mortal coil. The biggest
difference is that in between we develop selfhood and definite opinions about how
that self should be treated.
Many North Americans will avoid this film like the plague.
Not only is its subject a downer, its pacing is glacial. Georges and Anne are
essentially prisoners on death row awaiting a sickle-bearing warden. They sit
in the stillness of the den, inch along the silence of the foyer, and sit
almost wordlessly at the table. There is one numbingly beautiful shot of
Anne on her side in bed wearing a pale blue night gown; were it not for her
occasional blinking, it could be a still-life titled Odalisque at 80. Another astonishing moment occurs during Georges’
slow-motion attempt to trap and release a pigeon that has gotten into the
apartment–almost certainly a metaphor for the soul’s release. These are among
numerous moments in which director Haneke forces his audiences to slow down and be aware of
time’s passage. Kudos go also to veteran actors Trintignant and Riva. Few
actors convey ennui as convincingly as Trintignat–his performance in Trois Coleurs: Rouge ranks among the
finest in cinematic history–but for once he is upstaged. Emmanuel Riva won’t win
the Oscar either, but it would be fair to say that there is more emotion,
passion, and anger in her eyebrows than her Oscar contenders could muster in a
dozen overwrought soliloquies. She is a veritable shape shifter whom we witness
transformed from a handsome older woman into a barely breathing sack of bones.
Toward the end, her performance is mime elevated to heights not seen since the
passing of Marcel Marceau.
Let me reiterate: this is not an American-style movie; it’s a European film. Amour demands
patience, but its rewards are–dare I say it?–eternal. It should be required
viewing for every erstwhile moralist that opposes doctor-assisted suicide. It
also gives a twist and substance to the New Testament passage: “Greater love
hath no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” --Rob Weir
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