Review of Amour (2012) by Tino P — 26 Nov 2013

Amour is one of the most divisive films I've ever seen, at least for myself anyways. I give it five stars mainly because I think it's artistic genius, and Hanake proves he may be the most cerebral filmmaker in the world. It truly is, as the critics have said, a terrifically acted, and marvelously written and directed film, that is truly harrowing, relatable, and mind boggling. However, I don't care for Hanake's view of life at all. The film may be more true than I care to know, but that doesn't take away from the fact that this is an incredibly bleak film; it shows us a different side of love, the side of care and responsibility, which is not a terribly bleak theme when you think about it, but Hanake makes it seem like its the worst thing in the whole fucking world. Like goddamn, how do you always see the most utterly nihilistic side of any given abstract idea? And life for that matter. I mean love is a beautiful thing, it's what carries all of us through life; without love, what would life be? It would be pretty much meaningless, that's what. And Hanake seems to think that way as well, however, he also seems to think life's pretty much meaningless with love as well. To compare him to a different filmmaker, Terrence Malick released "to the Wonder," earlier this year, and it's main theme was love. It can be characterized as bleak, although, Malick ultimately shows us that life is a constant struggle filled with fleeting lovers and loves, but it is worth it, the love makes it worth it. But Amour is just bleak upon bleak upon bleak, there is nothing to show us any happiness, only continued dialogue and images that make us want to kill ourselves, because life is just going to get to that point of frailty, and who the fuck wants that?

With all this said, I can't discredit his writing and skill with realism just because I greatly disagree with his views. Hanake is a great filmmaker, and the world needs his artistic genius to show us something that most of us would gladly stay ignorant of. Amour deserves to be watched nonetheless.