Review of Amour (2012) by Mike C — 24 Sep 2013

I always say the Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film is likely the best movie of the year, at least according to the Academy Awards. Amour won that title, but unlike most of the movies who win/are nominated for Foreign Film, it was also nominated in a variety of other categories.

I thought it was French but it's evidently Austrian. I only say that because it feels like a French movie. Not a lot of motion with either the camera or the actors. It's pretty much set the camera down and watch the people go about their lives. Sometimes it works.

This is a fairly brutal story and a fairly romantic story. These two have spent their lives together. When she becomes ill, neither knows quite what to do. It's brutal for obvious reasons if you've seen it, and less obviously because life is brutal. One moment the woman is more or less fine. In a short period of time, she more or less becomes an invalid at the mercy of those around her.

I'm not sure it would have been as widely nominated had it a different ending. That said, I feel it was an appropriate ending, both for the movie and in life. Well, sort of. SPOILERS: You Don't Know Jack is a great, great movie about Kevorkian, a man who made a living in cases like this. And think of the dignity saved and suffering avoided had a Kevorkian-type entered the picture earlier. This woman did not want to go to a hospital. She wanted to die. Unfortunately, it was taking a great deal of time. Out of love, her partner does it. But it's not pleasant. They both deserved better. And this is why, at some point, the world needs to have a serious discussion as to why we feel it necessary to euthanize animals when they suffer, but to do so with human is taboo.