Review of Amour (2012) by Steve K — 17 Feb 2013

"Amour" is not complex in terms of plot. The setup concerns an elderly woman found dead after firefighters break down her apartment door. She is clothed and surrounded by flowers, lying peacefully atop her bed. The rest of the film is the flashback that leads to this conclusion. What makes "Amour" complex is the cataclysm of emotions occurring among characters who face the unwinnable situation of watching a loved one dying slowly and painfully from a series of strokes. If you've ever witnessed such a thing, even from afar, you will immediately grasp the great range of suffering that comes from staring defeat in the eyes and seeing no chance for victory.

Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) are octogenarians who love each other in the imperfect but sincere way of a mature couple. When Anne suddenly blanks out one morning for no apparent reason, Georges hopes that it is a practical joke, but soon Anne is undergoing surgery to correct a blocked artery, surgery that goes terribly wrong. As Anne continues to decline, Georges faces each obstacle with numbing clarity. He knows how this will end. Strains show up with the couple's daughter, Eve, played by Isabelle Huppert as an earnest but mostly clueless 21st century consumer who just wants someone to fix the whole situation already. An argument between Georges and Eve highlights one of the central conflicts for older people in most westernized cultures: the choice to stay at home, suffering but at least with some dignity, or to be shipped off to a warehouse for the dying and take even greater abuses and neglect than those visited on Anne by one of her trashy nurses (Dinara Droukarova).

The film is directed with steadfast refusal by Michael Haneke to let the viewer turn away from the rawness of what is happening onscreen. Long, steady shots supplant the standard (and annoying) quick zooms and slapdash editing of so many movies today, making "Amour" much more Bergman than Bay, and thank goodness for it. He focuses mostly on the smaller things, such as the frustration of trying to feed Anne when she refuses to eat or the symbolic visitation by a wayward pigeon on their house. The cast is excellent, particularly Trintignant, who must carry the film almost entirely through his expressions -- we see the internal turmoil his weathered face tries so hard to mask.

"Amour" is not for the faint of heart. It's an unflinching look at aspects of living that Americans, in particular, avoid in their films and often in their lives. It's not entertaining, but it is honest, and in this, worth two hours of your life.