Amour

[vrailaine]

So I saw this last night and was a bit disappointed, but I can't quite gauge whether it's due to having ridiculously high expectations or not.

Was engaged in it throughout, kinda surprised about the complaints of overly long shots tbh, but it didn't provoke much of an emotional response at all. Maybe it lacked a sense of intimacy or something? They both were very good, but there was a bit of a sterile vibe to the whole thing that prevented me from ever really feeling her deteriorating health ...just felt like a collection of scenes with nothing happening in between.

Not really sure what else I could expect though, so I don't know why it left me cold. It'd hardly be the setting? Wealthy french people and their old little apartment.


Ultimately though, fairly sure my expectations screwed it; I was expecting and hoping for something that would tear my heart apart and it pales in comparison to watching my dad slowly die over a few days.


So yeah, Palme D'Or, 8.7/10 average rating on Rotten Tomatoes, 9.4/10 from top critics, 94% on metacritic, shoe-in for the best foreign language film at the Oscars... etc
Any else see it? What did you think of it? Any standout scenes? Should I rewatch it? Were a surprisingly large number of people at your screening laughing throughout?

[wheatgod]

I saw it alone, in a cinema with about 3 other people who were alone. It was a desperately sad experience (on many levels). There were funny bits, so don't worry about the laughing. It was a while ago but here's what I remember.

Their relationship was a bit cold, is this where the sterility came from? Her failing health in fact added a bit of warmth to proceedings, with him opening up a bit with his confessional stories (doesn't she say something like, "why have I never heard this before?).

Or was the sterility more the lack of drama? This was someone in their last days, on their last legs. Not much drama there. It was never going to go any other way.

Him wheeling her in and not knowing how to handle the most simple thing getting her through the door to the living room, very subtle and thought provoking. Its such a major change and he can't even get her through the door.

Her decline into absolute senility was crushing. Seeing her at her best, on the piano, contrasted with the gurgling mess - very painful indeed. The daughter feeling obligated to be involved but failing to connect with either of them, very sad. The bitch nurse, horrid. Decay and death is fucking awful, and the film hits you with it in the face from every direction. Did you not get this?

You say it didn't get an emotional response from you, with me it was the total opposite. I have never had such an emotional response to a film.

Spoiler alert

Her final moments, when he snuffs her, fuck. And when he "sees" her washing up, fuck fuck fuck.

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Watch it again!!

[vrailaine]

There were funny bits, but, this was getting some pretty crazy howls from people. Was a theatre crowd though and they seem to have a tendency to be on the hunt for the slightest bit of humour to display their appreciation it, I always find. Would have much preferred seeing it in an empty theatre, thought my attention span wouldn't handle it at home but I think it would have had no bother really.

Maybe it was the relationship, from pretty early on they're segregated into their respective roles which haven't a huge amount to do with what bonds them together. The performers clicked well together though, I thought.

Decay and death is fucking awful, and the film hits you with it in the face from every direction. Did you not get this?

Hmm... I got it, but, I dunno, I might be just too steeped in that shit to begin with.
Maybe I'm just disappointed that I seem to have pretty much came to terms with death as the unavoidable shitty pile of shit that it is and was expecting it to give me some new perspective or something, but there isn't any. Wrong perspective to watching the film in altogether.

[wheatgod]

Its not just about death, mind. Its the love involved, and the role it plays, and how love is transformed by it. Him

Spoiler alert

snuffing her out

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was an act of love. Fuuuuck!

[finnquark]

I went to see this in November (I think). I found it extremely emotional, mainly for the reasons wheatgod outlines above. I was quietly crying from around two thirds of the way in - the moment he slaps here when trying to get her to drink something was possibly the most upsetting thing I've ever seen in a film.

It just summed up the ways in which terminal illness, and the stress of caring for a suffering loved one, can erode the bonds built up over a lifetime of contentment. And it did it with such a short, simple moment. From then on in, it was tragic. I really like Haneke films (particularly White Ribbon), and this was arguably my favourite of his.

I went to see this as a third date with the girl I'm now in love with. Made for an awkward moment at the end of the film, when she turned to see my face a mess with tears and snot, given she'd remained seemingly impassive throughout. She said she'd nearly cried, but I'm not sure - you're not alone in lacking an overt emotional response to it vrailaine.

[wheatgod]

Its showing again at some cinemas this coming week, as part of the BAFTAs I think Checkitout.

[zomgmouse]

I've just been to see this and I'd like to second the enthusiastic response. I found it really well-crafted and consistent. It managed to deal with an obviously heavy theme in such a way that didn't necessarily rely on the heaviness itself to provoke a cheap reaction, but instead focussed in on minutiae and interpersonal relations. I liked how the often mundane dialogue counterpointed the themes - and, indeed, the very quotidianness of its representations of their lives was used to really great effect. It's the little things - like, as wheatgod pointed out, the living room door. The pigeon I remember provoked small chuckles in the audience. I think for me the biggest emotional blow was when he was

Spoiler alert

practicing walking with her

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. That was just huge.

Spoiler alert

The slap

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, too, but that was more of a sudden blow (pun not intended) than a gradual crushing feeling.

Of note is cinematographer Darius Khondji, who I believe worked with Jeunet/Caro on Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children and also Fincher on Se7en (and a bunch of other stuff, including, I just found out, the remake of Funny Games).

I liked how Haneke here looked a lot more at complex psychological implications of daily life, which seems to be a move away from his usual concerns. Even

Spoiler alert

the stroke itself

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is portrayed as yet another thing one encounters in life, rather than something out of the ordinary, shocking though it is. But I've only seen the original Funny Games and The Piano Teacher of his films, so I'll need to have a look at some others before I can say what I just said in a more definitive manner.

I might also mention that I went to see it by myself, and I'm not sure if I could see it with someone else. It's the type of film that creates a singular mood within me that I like to nurse without disruption from outside parties.