Amour” is director Michael Haneke’s testament to both the sweetest and saddest emotion one can feel-love. How fitting for Valentine’s Day, no? The film examines the struggle with love and death and how they feed off each other.
Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) and Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) play an elderly Parisian couple who spend their time enjoying each other’s company, good books and divine looking French food. (Watch it and tell me those green beans don’t look heavenly). The film opens with French policeman entering an apartment and covering their noses, only to discover an elderly woman adorned in flowers lying on her death bed.
When we first meet the couple, their love for each other is blatant. George tells Anne how beautiful she looks and Anne answering with
a self-deprecating “oh please”– the cute little back and forths all couples have. One day as the couple is enjoying their dinner Anne goes into a catatonic state and remembers nothing of it once she comes back around.
From there, things go from bad to worse: a failed surgery leaves Anne paralyzed on one side of her body, then a stroke renders her
completely immobile. Throughout the film Georges remains intrepid in taking care of his wife, for better or for worse, in sickness
and in health, no matter how emotionally draining it is for both of them.
Haneke showed audiences that as we get older grand gestures of love aren’t the most important thing rather, the subtle sweetness between a couple mean more than you would think. Although what Georges does for Anne is perhaps the most thoughtful thing someone can do, he never once asks for gratitude because it is his duty as a husband. The saddest thing that can happen to
someone is watch the one person they are deeply in love with slowly fade away.
As sad as that sounds, “Amour” is just as equally romantic. “Amour” is a film most can relate to. There has been a point in most’s lives were they have made a decision regarding a loved, or even liked, one. “Amour” focuses on trying to melt the two and the tug of war that comes with it. It comes highly recommended for those who want to see what true love looks like.
