Taking place in Berlin during the Romantic Era, Jessica Hausner's Amour Four tells the story of poet Heinrich who has grown infatuated with the idea of conquering the inevitability of death through love. Unable to convince his cousin Marie to join him in his suicide pact, Henrich meets Henriette, the wife of a businessman, who lives a life of servitude, devoid of any real sense of passion or companionship with her loving but distant husband. While Henrich's proposal is met with deft ears at first, when Henriette finds herself suffering from what is diagnosed as a terminal illness, she becomes increasingly infatuated with the young Poet's proposed 'love". Considering the subject-matter, Amour Fou could have been a much darker film, as Jessica Hausner opts instead to deliver a far more witty film than I was expecting, being a meditation on fate, circumstance, and companionship, while also exploring feminism in an era where the term simply didn't exist. Henriette is a character who lacks intimacy, which combined with her lack of individuality, makes her an oppressed individual in this story of two men, in her husband and the poet, Heinrich, each whose purpose and goals are predicated on Henriette's servitude. Henriette is a character who fits the mold of society, quietly serving her husband in a way that is expected. While the poet himself wants to break her free of this convention, he does so for his own mutual gains, as Amour Fou paints a portrait of a character in Henriette who has no freedom, with each one of these characters offering a unique form of oppression, regardless of if they realize it or not. The mise-en-scene of Jessica Hausner's Amour Four stands out, with every sequence being strategically realized, not only the cinematography's compositions, but also the use of lighting, placement of furniture, and staging of the characters, which together give the film a look of authenticity that is equal parts hypnotic. The cinematography uses a lot of restrictive framing, featuring symmetrical imagery that evokes a sense of strict structure and confinement, beautifully illustrating Henriette's situation, one which woman in society at the time were more than accustomed too. Amour Four seems to be not only about the elasticity of fate but also emotions as a whole, using this story to illustrate the illusion of choice and control we all have, with our emotions and desires themselves being far more elastic than we care to admit. Featuring lots of philosophical banter about the jarring realizations of life which death can bring, as well as an examination of the oppressive nature of desire, Jessica Hausner's Amour Four is a beautifully rendered exploration of choice, fate, and oppression, that offers up a lot for the viewer to chew on long after the credits roll.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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