Review of Amour (2012) by Kyle B — 18 Feb 2013

Acclaimed Austrian director Michael Haneke's poignant, stark portrait of aging, commitment and mortality is a powerful work of cinema that takes patience, persistence and understanding to unveil. Eschewing the short-attention-span dynamics of the internet era, Haneke measures his cinematic strokes with the rare precision of a true master in complete control of his artistic medium.

As played by Jean-Louis Trintingnant and Emanuelle Riva, Georges and Anne are a cultured couple in their eighties, retired music teachers enjoying the twilight of their transience quietly in Paris. The boundaries of their love and loyalty are pushed to its limits when Anne falls irreversibly ill, and it is Georges who has to take care of her.

Haneke's film refuses to treat its audience with any kind of sympathy, relying on the characters' plight and the reality of the situation to carry its narrative forward. Trintingnant and Riva (who has been nominated for an Oscar) deliver stunning, defining performances as Haneke constantly challenges and pushes our perceptions and understanding of his central theme: old age and illness, delivering a final killing stroke with not so much as a twitch, refusing to spoon-feed his audience with even a trace of compromising schmaltz that pervades most of the formulaic feel-good cinema that pervades audiences.

This is a film of mature, realistic consequences and in the end will remain as a commanding study of the nature of love, aging, mortality and death.