By Jake Howell jake.howell@utoronto.ca

Cannes Competition review: Amour

Posted Sunday, May 20th, 2012 - Comments Off on Cannes Competition review: Amour
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To some demographics, Amour will feel long and slow, but that’s exactly what life is like for a retired married couple. Rest assured, because Michael Haneke’s latest is a quietly breathtaking film that looks at the devastating separation of soul-mates, and cinematic proof the characteristically cold director has a heart.

Amour revolves around Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) and Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant), who are acting out the final stages of their lives. When Anne falls suddenly ill, Georges begins to give palliative care to her as she loses more and more mobility in her failing body.

Despite one specific dream sequence, Haneke’s signature shocks aren’t really apparent in Amour, and the director has instead opted for an unembellished approach. Combined with an unflinching camera and eschewing cinematic frills of any kind – non-diegetic music, for example – Haneke allows his film to be carried entirely by its legendary cast, and they absolutely succeed. The frame is simply a window into Georges and Anne’s exquisite apartment, with very little added to it. The film is formally very plain, but this isn’t a bad thing.

On a personal level, I should note that I can’t completely relate to Amour, because I am fortunate enough to have a relatively healthy family that has yet to really require hospice care. Knock on wood. Of course, this doesn’t reduce my enjoyment of the film, because the love story in Amour is powerful enough to break hearts with its tender beauty and polite contemplation. Amour is cathartic in many ways, but audiences who have experienced crippling health issues (or anything that has placed an incredible strain on a relationship) will be the most deeply touched.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V89p9384fZs

Haneke’s career has been previously bleak, but Amour exhibits a brighter director. That said, Amour is a very sad story, but it’s clear that the meaning of the film is unequivocally positive about the human spirit and our commitment to loved ones. The connection between Georges and Anne is remarkably honest, which is mostly thanks to the masterful performances by Jean Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva. France is killing it in the acting game right now, and I can’t imagine these actors walking away from 2012 without a basketful of trophies.

As mentioned previously, there is only one scene that feels “Haneke” in Amour, so faithful followers of his work might not find what they’re looking for in his newest creation. Nevertheless, Amour is kind of extraordinary – it’s a beautiful, philosophical take on what love actually is, as well as an exploration of elder abuse and pity. Patience is absolutely essential to the consumption of Amour, because it reflects how one should act when interacting with the elderly. Audiences who give this film the time and respect it rightfully deserves will receive a beautifully human narrative, in addition to a broken heart.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon