Two stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, painful intimacy, brief profanity and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.8.13
However impressive Emmanuelle
Riva’s starring role in Amour — and her work transcends mere words such as brave and raw — the film itself is a colossal yawn.
At all times, and in every
possible way, writer/director Michael Haneke refuses to grant access to these
characters; they’re little more than two-dimensional ciphers. Dialogue is
sparse, Haneke often preferring the intimate intensity of searching gazes
amplified by extreme close-ups. He and cinematographer Darius Khondji also
favor faraway compositions, with people occupying only a small portion of an
otherwise quiet and static room.
Haneke holds, at great length, on
the most mundane behavior — unpacking groceries, donning clothing, eating meals
— to a point well beyond aggravation. This really isn’t a film, or a least not
a narrative in the conventional sense: more a lengthy tone poem or mood piece.
The wafer-thin story could be
scrawled on a postcard: Retired music teachers Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant)
and Anne (Riva) are enjoying their twilight years in a spacious city apartment
laden with culture: books, music, a piano. She suffers a sudden stroke, then in
time endures a second, much more crippling one; she declines before her
husband’s eyes. And ours.
He insists on caring for her,
coping as best he can. Which, ultimately, isn’t too well.
That’s all, folks.
So yes, fine: Haneke’s emphasis
on the routine and commonplace underscores the degree to which Anne finds it
harder and harder to accomplish any of the thousand-and-one little tasks that
we take for granted each day. Dressing, eating, moving across a room. Going to
the bathroom.
Their refined artistic tastes
aside, Georges and Anne are rendered “ordinary” by Haneke’s detached approach.
Strokes are equal-opportunity: They can hit anybody, at any time, and life
changes in an eyeblink. Thanks to Riva’s wholly realistic transformation, as
Anne slides further away from her “normal” life, we can’t help reflecting on
that silent prayer: There, but for the grace of God, goes my partner. My child.
Myself.
But all this would mean more —
and become more poignant — if we had the slightest clue about this couple,
prior to this tragedy. They appear to have done well professionally; money
isn’t an issue. But did they get along? Were they satisfied with living through
the artistic successes of students who went on to become famous? Are they kind
and honorable? Do their deserve our sympathy?
They have one child: an adult
daughter, Eva (Isabelle Huppert), who appears to have married unhappily. Her
personal life is sketched even more superficially, her relationship with her
parents strained at best, possibly even estranged. She and her father talk like
casual back fence neighbors, rather than intimates. We’ve no idea why. At best,
Eva behaves like a self-centered dolt; at worst, she could be actively insensitive.
Impossible to be sure.
Huppert’s performance is brittle
and clumsy, as if she’s trying to fabricate behavior on the spot, rather than
having studied a script and rehearsed a part.
These people are so superficial,
their lives so claustrophobic — we spend the entire film within the rooms of
this apartment — that Haneke’s dry, leaden touch minimizes the very emotional
intensity we should be experiencing. It’s almost as if Haneke and Riva are
working against each other, with the director undercutting, minimizing and
muting his lead actress’ achingly powerful performance.
Mind you, this aloof approach
certainly is deliberate, and it obviously works for some viewers; Amour won
Cannes’ Palme d’Or and has been showered with honors by film critics’
associations from Los Angeles to New York.
Didn’t do a thing for me. Like
watching paint dry.
Yes, fleeting moments are
unexpectedly powerful, and — as the narrative progresses — Haneke imbues this
apartment with an unsettling atmosphere of creepy tension that strongly echoes
Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, wherein Catherine Deneuve slowly went mad within
the walls of her self-imposed apartment prison. But Haneke’s snapshots of
emotional brilliance inevitably are undone by prolonged stretches of ...
nothing.
Then, too, there’s the mystery of
this story’s prologue, and the questions raised by the emergency crew that
removes a barricade in order to enter the apartment. Barricaded, from the
outside? Say what?
This, actually, is where the saga
concludes; the story then unfolds as an extended flashback.
Anne suffers her first stroke
while she and Georges share a meal; she simply freezes, her expression blank,
as if all the inner synapses have failed to fire. Unable to rouse her, his
concern mounting by the moment, Georges prepares to call a doctor. But then,
just as suddenly, Anne is back, utterly unaware of the missing few minutes.
He wants her examined anyway;
pride and defiance chase each other across Riva’s expressive face as Anne
objects. He apparently perseveres; some period of time passes, and she returns
home after unsuccessful (botched?) medical intervention, her entire right side
now paralyzed. (It should be mentioned that Haneke appears to take a rather dim
view of the French healthcare system.)
They adjust to this new reality,
Anne growing more frustrated by what she’s no longer able to do or enjoy,
Georges increasingly troubled by her unwillingness to cope.
They entertain one unexpected
visitor: a former student (Alexandre Tharaud) now turned concert pianist, who
takes a chance and just “drops in.” The atmosphere is tense, uncomfortable; the
visit is short. When he later sends them one of his CDs, Anne cannot listen to
it, apparently reminded too much of what she’s no longer able to do at a piano.
This incident, by the way,
prompts an obvious question: Since Anne and Georges obviously once led a rich
life that was been filled with friends and former students, where the hell are
they? Nobody else shows up, out of concern? No phone calls or letters? Even if
Anne has asked Georges to discourage people, why would he comply? And even if
he did, are we really to believe that all of their acquaintances are so
insensitive that they’d simply stay away?
Rubbish. In this respect, as in
all others, Haneke has contrived an environment of artificial claustrophobia.
Ironically, in so doing, he undercuts the drama; his film is too mannered to be
heartbreaking. It’s simply dreary.
Then, precisely at the midpoint
of this 127-minute slog, one scene cuts to the next and whoosh ... suddenly
Anne is in bed, now infirm, having suffered another, much more severe stroke.
We’ve no idea how much more time has passed; indeed, it’s impossible to clock
the passage of time to any degree. In a sense, time doesn’t exist: no doubt
another deliberate touch on Haneke’s part, and just as irritating as so many
others.
Nurses become part of the
routine; one proves a disaster, an exchange so brief that we wonder if some
relevant scenes have been chopped away. Her “exit wages” are 780 Euros, surely
a suggestion that she has been present for at least several days.
Haneke can’t be bothered with
such details. He’s far more interested in (for example) showing the paintings —
one ... after another ... after another — on the walls of this apartment.
Paintings with no people, further symbolizing Anne and Georges’ enforced
isolation. We get it, we get it.
Riva has garnered the lion’s
share of acting attention, and she certainly deserves the accolades; you’ll not
soon forget the heartbreaking, painful intimacy of her performance (this
despite — never because of — Haneke’s intolerable filmmaking style). We ache
for the wearing away of Anne’s dignity, and her increasingly desperate efforts
to cling to the more radiant self she must have been.
In fairness, though, Trintignant
deserves equal credit for a performance that is less “showy” but just as
strong. We see the depth of love in Georges’ eyes, the growing despair as the
woman he knows withdraws from him ... in part because of the strokes, but also
of her own doing, because she can’t bear him to see her like this. Trintignant
radiates mounting grief at a level that becomes painful.
Or it would be painful, anyway, given
better circumstances. Under Haneke’s guidance, however, Riva and Trintignant
too frequently act up a storm in a vacuum. We can’t help being relieved when
the screen finally goes dark: not for any sense of closure to this sad, dreary
saga, but simply out of gratitude for the bloody film being over and done with.
A best picture nomination? Best
direction? Best writing?
Gimme a break.
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