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With Amour, Michel Haneke sheds cold harsh light on the indignities of dying. It may sound melodramatic, perhaps even depressing, but this is simply an honest and harrowingly beautiful portrayal of the day to day processes of losing someone.
Anne and George (Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant) are an adoring, 80-something couple. Retired musicians; both share a lifelong passion for music and are still immersed in the classical music world. One day Anne suffers an attack and George must take on the roll of carer as she begins to fade both in body and mind. The deterioration weighs heavily on Anne’s pride and the couple’s bond eventually feels this strain too.
Jean-Louis Trintignant delivers a terrific performance as George, bringing his limp and well faceted face to the mournful role, but as Anne, Emmanuelle Riva is simply astonishing. As her elegance and grace do battle with her worsening affliction the level of commitment Riva shows is staggering. Haneke has described it as “more than acting” and there is something otherworldly about it, the man has been known to put his performers through the ringer but this has an added layer; with both actors in their 80s the gruelling events they are playing out may soon be something very real for them. The fact seems to linger throughout Amour and gives their performances an earth shattering realism. Just how Haneke convinced them seems unthinkable but as Riva said herself “You just don’t say no to a film like Amour”.
Death will always pose the greatest questions and, in true Haneke fashion, no answers are given. How do we measure the loss of a life? Of course it is in that person’s absence, but also in their lingering presence. George must cope with both, as Anne slowly drifts away in her bed he is left to wander the cavernous hallways of their apartment. A grand and tasteful Parisian home, every corner marked with the textures of a life well lived; the grand piano a now silent monolith at its centre. The glimpses of music we hear- some real, some from memory- serve as a devastating example of the passing of time, whole years seem to disappear as the notes ring out.
Even before Amour picked up this year’s Palme D’or, his second on the trot, Haneke could very well have been regarded as the greatest European director of his generation, his most accessible work so far and perhaps his most sentimental, the film is a masterpiece of modern cinema and an elegant example of the raw power of images, Amour simply asks the type of questions that only great art can.
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