Michael Haneke’s films have gained both critical acclaim and a certain notoriety; listing Funny Games, The White Ribbon, and Hidden amongst his works, Haneke – it is fair to suggest – does not flinch from his subject nor does he pander to the viewer. In Amour we are pitted against our own attitudes towards death and old age, our assumptions and deepest fears laid out by two remarkably believable characters, framed by Haneke’s bleak, static minimalism. Indeed a lack of score or soundtrack during Amour adds a wave of existential terror to the often intrusively quiet claustrophobia experienced by both the viewer and the protagonists; as the lights of their lives, fatally entwined, begin to dim, so do our hopes that they may recover somehow.
The opening scenes of Amour see the elderly bourgeois couple of Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) & Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) attend a concert hosted by one of Anne’s prodigiously talented former students. In the narrative context, the concert is a fitting representation of a joyful time in their lives and of Anne’s immense success as a teacher, followed by the beginning of the deterioration of Anne’s mental and physical state – both crescendo and diminuendo in this instance are granted with a heavy sense of irony. Furthermore, we the audience can only see the reactions of the crowd whilst listening to the music being played – an appropriately mordant metaphor, given the unavoidable nature of the events that unfold before our own eyes as the film progresses. With Amour, it seems to be Haneke’s desire to explore a state of helplessness as experienced by the elderly and infirm, from the point of view of two people who have loved for a lifetime. On one hand, Anne, sufferer in a literal, physical sense, whilst Georges’ conflicts are often philosophical and seemingly moral; it is soon after the pivotal opening concert that Anne suffers a stroke, after which Georges decides to care for his ailing, dementia-suffering wife alone, faced with an increasingly bleak future and memories of happier times increasingly distant.
The sense of fatalism and unstoppable tragedy led me to draw certain comparisons with Romeo and Juliet, and from the opening scenes to the very final moments, Haneke’s intent is to present Georges and Anne as a couple doomed early on but very much in love; a true love, intangible, beyond the pale. Trintignant’s own performance as a devoted and embattled husband is truly special; the interaction between the pair so utterly and endearingly natural, veering away from the forced chemistry and cheap lip service so often witnessed in Hollywood’s own tales of love. But, Haneke and his films live about a million miles away from Hollywood.
Amour is without question a masterpiece, the kind of magnum opus that makes you remember how incredible a medium cinema can be and why you love it; at the very same time, life as imagined through the lens of Michael Haneke is deeply troubling, heartwrenching and harrowing, demanding the full attention of its audience as well as a total emotional participation throughout. It is – however difficult to watch – a devastatingly essential piece of storytelling, landing a sequence of shocking, heartbreaking blows before an inevitable end; an engulfing and perfectly monstrous cinematic experience that once seen, can never be forgotten.
Deryn O’Sullivan (@silverscene_)
Deryn Paul O'Sullivan 