Monday, January 14, 2013

Amour: True meaning of love!

Amour means love in several languages. This is a French film. The love that this film deals with is the love of an old man for his wife who is also of almost his age. She is incapacitated by a stroke due to the shock of a robbery taking place in the house. The man Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) promises his wife Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) that he would not put her in the hospital as she is afraid of doctors. Instead, he looks after her delicately at home. However, things are not as simple as he thinks they would be. She deteriorates day after day. Worse, she begins to get more and more hysteric. He is painfully inadequate in dealing with such a miserable situation. But he puts up with all that, because he loves his wife so deeply. The end also looks more as a consequence of his love than anything else.








Director: Michael Haneke

Film Clip
Amour is the official film selected from Austria for this year’s Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Film category and is a front runner to win the award. The narration is melancholic and the mood looks very depressing. But, each scene is delicately woven to portray what true love means and what its burdens and consequences are. True love is full of passion at one level; it is also full of pains at another. This seems to be the message the film tries to put across.

The film has very little embellishments except the fine performances by the lead characters, especially Emmanuelle Riva. She is one of the strong contenders to win the best actress award. The camera acts more as an observer than recorder of scenes, because each moment seems so realistic. Finally, one cannot help but realise after watching this film that, it is one thing to grow old gracefully, but quite different to grow old together!



- Melwyn Pinto SJ