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.
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| The moment comes without warning: Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) suddenly discovers that his wife isn't present in her own skin, as if her soul has been extinguished. Moments later, she's back, unaware that anything is wrong ... but this initial stroke is merely the first indication that her body will, in time, betray her in the cruelest way possible. |
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.
