DVD Review – Amour (2012)

Amour, 2012

Written and Directed by Michael Haneke.
Starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva and Isabelle Huppert

SYNOPSIS:

An elderly couple’s bond of love is severely tested after one of them suffers a stroke.

Simple, tragic, at times beautiful and others overly long. That is the easiest way to sum up Michael Haneke’s Oscar winning Amour.

One of the big selling points to Amour has been its simple plot. We are introduced in the opening moments of the movie to a couple in their 80s played by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, who won an Oscar for her heart-breaking performance as Anne. Within a few scenes we discover that Anne has had a stroke and is paralysed down her right hand side. The rest of the movie is Georges (Trintignant) attempting to look after her as her deteriorating state challenges their relationship.

Because the plot is so simple, Amour can be quite dull at times. The film drags to an unnecessary two hour runtime with a lot of long shots of people staring into space or scenes of conversations with no attachment to the plot or a single shot of Georges chasing a pigeon for what feels like an eternity. What bothers me is that a lot of the elongated scenes have no relevance to the plot progression and just serve as Haneke patting himself on the back for being “artsy” with all the smugness of Arnold Rimmer when he’s right about something. This kind of filmmaking does have a place in the world of cinema, when it actually accomplishes something.

But when the film does something right it does it extremely well. There are several very powerful moments in the movie and some of the long takes work to the film’s atmosphere. Amour is purely set within one location so at times it can feel claustrophobic which only adds to Georges’ pain and because the scenes play out in ‘real time’, you feel like a fly on the wall as opposed to a member of an audience.

On top of that, the two leading performances are incredible. This is not acting, this feels like real life. In particular Riva’s portrayal of a woman who is nearing the end of her life is tear-jerkingly strong and Georges’ disassociation with all of this is told in his eyes rather than his inane dialogue. The supporting characters also put in fine performances but really don’t matter as this story is about Anne and Georges and Haneke’s character direction is pitch perfect. There is a slight father-daughter sub-plot tacked on to the movie which is frankly pointless as it doesn’t serve the main crux of the movie.

However when all is said and done, the strong performances and masterstroke characterisation is for nothing when the film is utterly boring. I get what Michael Haneke was trying to achieve, as I said before it feels like a fly-on-the-wall-scenario, but while the idea of being a fly on the wall is interesting the reality of it is simply dull. The conversations the characters have are not engaging enough and the dialogue feels overly forced and contrived. It’s such a shame because there is a powerful movie underneath all the art film smugness, but it’s overshadowed.

I’d heard a lot of good things about Amour and our own Rohan Morbey gave it a ★★★★★ review when it was released in cinemas last year, but it just didn’t work for me. It is worth watching for the incredible performances, but a lot of the run time is wasted on pointless things. If you trimmed out all of the unnecessary stuff, there is a really smart and beautiful 80 minute movie. I guess you’re love of Amour (no pun intended) boils down to just how much smugness you can stand to see some great acting.

Originally published March 18, 2013. Updated November 6, 2019.