George and Anne are a loving retired couple who are now in their eighties. They are well educated, retired music teachers who spend a lot of their time listening to music and keeping in contact with their former students. One day, seemingly like any other, Anne has a stroke, leaving her paralyzed on the right side of her body. With the doctors unable to help, Anne's condition continually worsens leaving George to care for her, his love being tested as he is forced to watch Anne slowly drift away. Michael Haneke's Amour is a hard film to write about, as it deals with the topic of death, something which everyone will experience. Amour is a very genuine and honest portrayal of growing old, capturing the inevitability of death. Cinematically this has got to be one of Haneke's most toned down films, but this more subdued and simple style certainly fits this story well. The film doesn't hold back in showing all the small details of how Anne's deteriorating health affects George, from both an emotional and physical point of view. Sure helping Anne in and out of her wheelchair is something which Georges would do gladly but we see the emotional effect this has on him - seeing the love of his life so helpless to do anything on her own. One of the more stylistic decisions revolves around George's pov, as he routinely sees the healthy version of Anne, living and breathing around the household, as he tries to cope with the inevitability of her worsening condition. As Anne falls farther and farther away from her true self, she becomes very self-conscious about the people in her life seeing her in such a condition. Essentially using Anne's story, Amour questions the moral constructs of assisted death, questioning why someone who is so far removed to the point where they are barely conscious and unable to perform the simplest of tasks would even want to stay alive. Amour is not an easy film to watch, but it's a film that beautifully captures the inevitable sadness that is a part of growing old, and in doing so, coming face to face with your own mortality. 8.5/10
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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