Amour (Love)

The director Michael Haneke (left) on the set with actor Jean-Louis Trintignant

Michael Haneke on the set with actress Emmanuelle Riva and actor Jean-Louis Trintignant

AMOUR (Love)            B+               

France  Germany  Austria  (127 mi)  2012  d:  Michael Haneke        

Sony Pictures Classics [United States]

Winner of Haneke’s second Palme d’Or (1st prize) at Cannes, though overly morose, and not without some controversy, as it appears to be a safe and conventional choice, with a Nanni Moretti-led Jury picking this film over Carlos Reygadas’ 2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #2 Post Tenebras Lux and Wes Anderson’s 2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #3 Moonrise Kingdom, both devastatingly original and much more inspiring works, while the talk of the festival was the even more fiendishly outlandish Léos Carax revival 2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #4 Holy Motors, yet the director has made a powerfully devastating film about the horrible indignity of dying, and watching someone you love deteriorate before your eyes, where in your mind they’re still alive and strong, the way you remember them, except they’ve become fragile creatures that can’t help themselves anymore.  What’s different about this approach is Haneke’s unsparing and exhaustively banal detail in depicting all aspects leading up to death, including the unsettling, interior psychological turmoil that plays into such a personalized experience.  Perhaps Haneke’s crowning achievement is casting the aging couple with French New Wave cinema royalty, writing the film for Jean-Louis Trintignant (who’s 81) as Georges, from Claude Lelouch’s A MAN AND A WOMAN (1966) and Eric Rohmer’s My Night at Maud's (Ma Nuit Chez Maud) (1969), a superb actor who hasn’t worked in seven years, while Emmanuelle Riva (85) is Anne, from Alain Resnais’s HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR (1959), the one who has a series of medical setbacks.  Both appeared in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s THREE COLORS TRILOGY, Riva appearing in BLUE (1993) while Trintignant was the lead in RED (1994), where both personify a cultured European dignity with an undisputed air of intelligence in their roles, which certainly comes into play here, as both have professional backgrounds living in an enormous Parisian apartment with an entire wall filled with shelves of books, including a piano, where she was a revered piano instructor, along with various drawings and paintings on the wall.  This couple is the epitome of cultural refinement, where it’s actually a joy, initially, to watch their clever wordplay with one another.            

The initial intimacy is followed by the realization that Anne is likely having a minor stroke while sitting at the breakfast table, where hospital efforts to restore her back to full health fail, leaving her partially paralyzed on her right side, requiring a wheelchair, where Georges has to help her get in and out of bed, her chair, the bathroom, and anywhere else she goes, but we never again see her leave the apartment, creating a highly restrictive use of ever confining space, as if the walls are caving in on them.  While they still maintain a daily routine, where the mundane details become the surgically precise structure of the film, they simply don’t get out anymore, so all they have is each other, music, and photograph books of earlier memories.  Their daughter Eva, Isabelle Huppert, shows obvious concern, thinking her mother should be receiving round the clock hospital care, but after her initial experience, Anne has no interest in ever returning to another hospital.  Eva complains to Georges, as if he’s not doing enough, but he’s taking care of her himself, feeding her, helping her perform the daily exercises, with nurse visits three times a week, and the doctor every other week, but Eva is devastated when her mother has another mild stroke and loses much of her speech, where her indistinguishable words don’t make sense and she can’t make out what her mother’s trying to say, which only becomes more disturbing.  None of the medical setbacks are shown, but happen incrementally, where Anne, once a fiercely stubborn force to be reckoned with, becomes completely helpless, requiring full-time care, which Georges is happy to provide, though it is exhausting.  He is the consummate picture of a man giving his undying devotion to the love of his life, where he is still consumed by her presence, still filled with the incredible aura of her life. 

But no matter how well educated and culturally aware, this never prepares anyone for watching a dying partner, where the daily grind eventually grows frustrating, especially when all you’re looking for is just a tiny sign that the person you’re married to is still there.  Haneke has a seamless approach to unraveling his film, where memories and dreams are mixed into the daily routines, reflecting the inner thoughts of those onscreen, where the mosaic of mixing them all together is an extremely accurate reflection of their existence.  So too is the way Georges starts hiding just how ill Anne is becoming, especially from Eva, who continues to call for the latest updates, where his energy to respond without anything hopeful to say simply disappears with each passing day, yet she persists, which from Georges’ point of view feels like an invasion, as all this couple has left is a few private moments.  The energy it takes out of her mother for one of Eva’s visits is something perhaps only Georges understands, which leaves Eva even more devastated as she simply doesn’t know what else to do.  Georges, of course, knows he’s already providing all there is to do, but he can’t change the agonizing twists of fate.  The lingering finality of the experience is hauntingly sad, as there’s nothing about it that’s easy or refined, where the underlying theme that persists throughout the film is a civilized and genteel couple who are cultured, who understand that beauty stands alongside life’s tragedies, but this still leaves you weakened and trembling at the knees, where nothing can prepare you for the inevitable finality.  Haneke doesn’t make any of this comfortable for the viewer, but it is a daring and exquisitely elegant portrait of what awaits us all, given a poetic and wordless farewell that has a touch of theatricality to it, where there are no neat bows tying up loose ends, instead there’s a sudden flood of emptiness, and the rest is silence.   

If truth be told, our own lives may have an overload of painfully prolonged and tragic deaths very reminiscent of what is portrayed onscreen, unfortunately witnessing too many people die in the end stages of cancer, so there is a certain degree of traumatic discomfort when encountering the subject once again, especially with the unaltered, unedited amount of realism mandated by this director, which to a large extent is the dramatic power of the film, the accumulating effects of death shown with such acute detail.  As a result, this is not a film likely to be revisited again.  The film is reminiscent of Maurice Pialat’s THE MOUTH AGAPE (1974), another film about a woman slowly dying from cancer, a starkly realistic portrait of death, told in segments of real time with long takes of her lying in bed.  While Haneke narrows his focus to an aging couple very much in love, Pialat paints a satirical portrait of the woman’s family avoiding bedroom visits or any dealings with sickness or death as they instead find ridiculous ways to pleasure and amuse themselves as they all wait for her to die.  In contrast, Haneke shows us the face of death through an exacting control over the increasingly oppressive material, confining actions within a ruthlessly restrictive space, which seems to parallel Georges’ efforts to maintain control over his beloved wife, right down to locking her inside a room so no one else, including her daughter, can see her in such a deteriorating state.  Haneke has always had a deep connection with suicide, preferring a dignified exit, sparing the dying from the agonizing medical atrophy, instead seeing it in its most simplistic light, which may be seen as an act of human kindness, however wretched it appears.  Once distanced from Haneke’s film, the more one appreciates a certain simplistic perfection, though one can't yet determine overall greatness when the subject matter alone is something that would likely never be returned to, so as a one time only experience, how significant can a film be?   Might the same be asked of Haneke’s own loathsome Funny Games (1997) (1997), or Pasolini’s SALÒ, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM (1975)?  Still can't answer that perplexing question.  Final thoughts, however, are appreciating the film’s tenderness and restraint, including the unique way Haneke expresses compassion through unspoken, interior thoughts and a highly inventive use of visual cues, offscreen sound, and original imagery.

After Love (L'Économie du couple)

AFTER LOVE (L'Économie du couple)        B                    

France  Belgium  (100 mi)  2016 ‘Scope  d :  Joachim Lafosse          Official site [UK]

One might have loved to see this in Xavier Dolan’s hands, as the explosive moments, simmering anguish, and shifting visual dynamic might have turned this into an emotional powerhouse of a film.  As is, it’s an elegantly restrained, yet astute, chamber drama about the disintegration of a marriage, using no backstory or flashbacks to reveal how we arrived at this state, but the film begins in the midst of family turmoil, as the husband (filmmaker turned actor) Cédric Kahn as Boris arrives unexpectedly on a day that violates the separation agreement, causing his wife Marie (Bérénice Béjo) to fume about the ensuing chaos this causes in the home, as instead of getting ready for a bath, the two kids Jade and Margaux (appropriately played by two sisters named Jade and Margaux Soentjens) want to play with their Daddy.  What’s confusing, however, is that the couple hasn’t actually separated, due to the financial instability of Boris, whose tenuous work history is on and off, finding it difficult to hold a steady job, so he’s still living in the home, having his own separate room.  What is clear, however, is that Marie has had enough of Boris, where every little move he makes bothers her, finding him a nuisance who is more trouble than he is worth, continually making her upset, where it takes all her energy just to contain herself and act normal in front of the children, as inside she is seething with anger.  Béjo’s fiery temper is held in check, but she is pushed to the edge in the film, while Kahn is another matter altogether, as it’s clear there’s a pronounced element of shame and self-loathing, so he acts in a much more despicable manner, often the result of how he perceives he is being treated, as he has a tendency to lash out at others, blaming Marie every chance he gets, though it’s clear throughout that she’s the stable partner, financially and emotionally, with unquestionable mothering skills, while Kahn is more hit or miss, trying to be there for his kids, but often he misses the mark, promising more than he can deliver.

With few blistering moments, more of a carefully choreographed drama of dissonance and clashing emotions, the film doesn’t have the surgical precision it may have intended, but is more about trying to preserve every last shred of humanity while you are totally exposed, every defect in plain view, as your marriage is falling apart directly in front of your children, who are innocent bystanders in this incendiary flame-out of what was once a happy love affair.  The troubling aspect is that you can’t hide the obvious dysfunction, where you’re as apt to behave in a bizarre manner or blurt out something inappropriate, all against your own will, but you simply can’t control yourself, as you are relying on instincts that don’t work anymore, becoming overly paranoid or aggressive, always thinking the worst of your partner, as if they are tying to undermine not just you, but everything you stand for.  This results in continual bickering and constant flare-ups, where Marie couldn’t be more agitated, but Boris acts like he’s done nothing to provoke her, like there’s still a chance, always acting innocent, yet he’s easily the more hurtful of the two, routinely accusing her, even stooping to blaming her for his own personal failings.  Marie just wants him out, the sooner the better, but shows sympathy for his financial situation by allowing him to continue living there, as she’s always covered for his losses, that’s been the history of their marriage, so she continues to tide him over until he can stand on his own two feet.  The problem is that day never comes, and it only gets worse.  The children, as they seem to be in nearly all French films, couldn’t be more natural, where the acting throughout is nothing less than exquisite, most of it taking place within the claustrophobic four walls of the house, which is the real bone of contention, as Boris wants half what it’s worth, even though Marie is the one paying all the bills.  Boris argues that his carpentry skills helped rebuild it when they moved in, significantly improving its market value.  And while that may be true, elevating his share to half is a stretch, considering she paid nearly the entire mortgage, so she thinks offering a third is more than generous.  This squabble keeps them busy throughout, though the numbers hide what’s really going on underneath, as both feel diminished in each other’s presence.

The film premiered in Director’s Fortnight at Cannes in 2016, as did PRIVATE LESSONS (2008), one of the director’s earlier films, while OUR CHILDREN (2012) premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes under a different title, LOVING WITHOUT REASON, where Belgian Actress Émilie Dequenne won Best Actress, as she did in competition at Cannes for the Dardenne brother’s earlier film ROSETTA (1999).  So this Belgian director has built some prominence, at least in France, though he’s not well known here.  Nonetheless, the film has a graceful style, accentuated by the precision of Bach piano music, where this family, after fifteen years of marriage, is clearly out of synch, breaking apart at the seams, where almost unnoticed is the class difference between the two of them, which is never really explored.  The bravura scene of the film is a dinner sequence right out of Maurice Pialat’s À Nos Amours (To Our Loves) (1983), where Pialat himself devastated the actors on the set, who had no advance notice, unexpectedly dominating the scene, verbally undermining each and every guest at the table, literally laying waste to what was otherwise a polite moment of bourgeois stability, where he clears the deck of any and all pretense.  Kahn is a lightweight, by comparison, but the implication is the same, as he, in the same manner as Pialat, arrives on the scene completely by accident, where Marie is having dinner with several guests on their outdoor patio, drinking several bottles of wine, expressing her continual anguish at having to put up with the infantile behavior of her husband, who makes a scene out of everything, perhaps with the knowledge that he’s soon to be out of the picture altogether, so why not go out with a bang?  As if on cue, he enters through a back gate, but out of courtesy (or perhaps pity) one of the guests asks if he’d like to share a glass of wine.  Politely accepting the offer, knowing his wife is fuming at his presence (suddenly gone silent), so he extends the invitation to include a taste of whatever’s sitting on the table uneaten, where it’s probably the best food he’s eaten in months, as he’s excluded in his own household, so he takes full advantage of the situation.  He fills the eerie silence with sarcastic remarks that are intentionally rude, challenging each one to confess what his wife has said about him.  Despite being told to leave, he refuses, so the guests decide they’ll leave, but Marie intervenes, claiming she made a cake for the occasion.  Boris immediately remarks that he’d love a piece of cake.  Growing ever more discomforting, this kind of prolonged agony is at the heart of the film, as all they have left is the power to destroy one another, having lost any traces of love.  What’s left of their marriage is summed up in a final rendering of the judge’s decision, where the two are left speechless, drained of all emotion, as a perfectly harmonious Bach Prelude plays over the end credits.