“Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And
death shall have no dominion." - Dylan Thomas
In Michael Haneke's Amour, Palme d'Or winner at
the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, Georges
(Jean-Louis Trintignant) watches over his loved
one, Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), as she gradually
loses control of the precious attributes of body
and mind after a series of strokes. In his usual
austere style, Haneke avoids sentimentality and
even outward displays of emotion to present a
carefully controlled, almost clinical picture of
devoted caregiving, concentrating on Georges
day-to support for his fading companion:
convincing her to take food and drink, helping
her go to bed, to walk, go to the toilet and
countless other mundane tasks.
Both retired piano teachers in their eighties,
Anne and Georges live in an upscale Paris
apartment surrounded with a huge library of
books and a baby grand piano in the living room.
After a brief opening scene that shows firemen
breaking into the apartment, in flashback we see
the devoted couple as they attend a piano
recital of Alexandre (Alexandre Tharaud), one of
their most promising students and both return
home in good spirits. The first jarring note
occurs when Georges and Anne discover that the
lock on their front door has been broken and
realize that there has been an attempted
break-in.
The scene is harrowing because of the
anticipation of one of Haneke's visceral shocks
but everything seems in order. The next morning,
however, when they sit down for breakfast, Anne
suddenly freezes and loses awareness of Georges'
presence in the room and is oblivious to his
questions about what is wrong. He knows
something is definitely not right when she
suddenly regains her faculties and has no memory
of what took place. When she pours tea, the
liquid misses the cup and lands on the kitchen
table. Anne has suffered a stroke and, after an
unsuccessful operation to remove an obstruction
in her carotid artery, her left side is
paralyzed and she forced to use a wheelchair.
Shaken by the hospital experience, she makes her
husband promise that he will never bring her
again to the hospital. As Anne's condition seems
to stabilize, a second stroke robs her of the
ability to speak coherently and, concurrently,
of her dignity. A visit by their daughter Eva
(Isabelle Huppert) who fights against acceptance
of the inevitable only adds to the distress.
Another visit by Alexandre is awkward and
unsettling and the appearance of a pigeon that
flies in from an open window seems to signal the
growing feeling of being trapped. Though Amour
largely avoids disturbing shocks, a dream
sequence with Georges standing in the hallway
with water up to his knees and a hand reaching
out to grab him is a reflection of his growing
terror. His patience challenged, Georges looks
for a way to end the suffering.
For a film about death and dying, the subject
hardly ever comes up in a meaningful way except
in Georges' negative comments about a friend's
funeral he has just attended. Though without an
overt spiritual context, the cumulative affect
of Amour is powerful and touching. Without
physical displays of love, or even the voicing
of the words “Je t'aime,” the love between
Georges and Anne is palpable in its expression
of kindness and mutual support built over a
lifetime. Though the film has Hanekean aspects
of being a horror story of the ravages of old
age, it is also a celebration of life, a
haunting odyssey of two entwined souls who
refuse to “go gently into that good night.”
Though we view it from a distance, the masterful
performances of Trintignant and Riva ensnare us
and conjure up in our mind the dread of our own
loved ones going through the same experience. As
my wife and I celebrate a birthday and our 37th
anniversary this week, Amour not only brings us
face to face with our own mortality but causes
us to look at life in a new way, reminding us in
the words of the poet Rumi that, “This is now.
Now is all there is. Don't wait for then; strike
the spark, light the fire…dance the way branches
of jasmine and cypress dance in a spring wind.”
Every minute. Every day.
