Amour - 1 smile

“Amour” will probably win the foreign language Oscar. And I can’t deny that this movie is well acted and well directed. Nonetheless, I didn’t like it and it’s all for personal reasons. When you’re ‘of a certain age,’ it’s difficult watching a movie that presents a possible window into the future. This movie is bleak and bitter, full of decline, incapacity, depression and death. And writer-director Michael Haneke takes great pains not to instill any rays of hope. Essentially he’s saying: You get old, you get sick and when your life has lost all quality, you might be lucky enough to die.

Two of the world’s best actors, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, play an octogenarian couple, Georges, a retired musician and Anne, a former piano teacher. The movie is shot almost entirely in the couple’s Paris apartment, the pair’s solitude broken only by rare visits from their daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) and Anne’s former student Alexandra (Alexandra Tharaud) and the concierge and his wife, who bring them groceries. Anne suffers a debilitating stroke and Georges is helpless to prevent her decline although he takes care of her with diligence and tenderness. Dying by degrees is a sad and humbling experience for Georges as well as the Anne. If you think that “Amour” is a sweet story of two gentle old folks holding hands as they face the final curtain, it’s not. The ironically titled movie is a pitiless story and while I can admire its craft, I’m disturbed by its vision. Subtitles. 1/2/13