"Amour," je t'aime

There is a heartbreaking moment in the middle of Amour when Georges, an octogenarian who is watching his wife slowly die, imagines her playing the piano. We the audience know this cannot be-- we've seen Anne navigate her way around their apartment in a motorized wheelchair, we've watched as Georges lifts Anne off the toilet, we've witnessed her rapid deterioration when even speaking is a challenge. Yet the beauty of this moment-- and the tenderness with which director Michael Haneke paints the grief, heartbreak, and immeasurable tragedy of a loving husband imagining his wife making music once more, free of her ailments, and exhibiting all the grace and dignity he surely loved about her-- is defining. Amour, as the title suggests, is about love, and, more profoundly, it's about what happens when the love you offer someone is not enough to save them.

If that sounds bleak, it is. This isn't a rosy movie about the transcendent power of love, or a syrupy, Nicholas Sparks-esque love letter to, well, love. Georges and Anne have been married for decades. They are an elegant Parisian couple, who have loved each other for so long, that they have established a comfortable intimacy with one another that, like a fine wine, only comes with age. Tragedy, that unwelcome intruder, strikes, and Anne suffers a series of strokes that debilitate and degrade her. Georges, her devoted companion, does all he can to nurse her and keep her out of a nursing home, but he inevitably confronts his own limits as he realizes how limited his life is without her.

Michael Haneke is known for his complex, unflinching films that try the tolerance (in every sense of the word) of his audience. Most recently, Haneke gained critical acclaim for his well-crafted, deeply challenging The White Ribbon, which portrayed atrocities that haunted a small German village on the eve of World War I. He grounds his films in a strong sense of reality, and Amour is no exception; I felt uncomfortable watching some scenes-- Anne's humiliation at the failures of her body and Georges's desperate desire to make everything okay are poignantly, painfully acted.

Indeed, Emmanuelle Riva has been nominated for Best Actress by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. (Earlier in the week, I identified Quvenzhané Wallis from Beasts of the Southern Wild as the youngest ever Best Actress nominee; well, as it happens, 2013 is a year of milestones for this category, since Riva is the oldest nominee ever. Way to go, Emmanuelle!) The role of Anne is a full-person role-- it's emotionally, physically, psychologically, and intellectually demanding. It took an actress as graceful, gifted, and sensitive as Emmanuelle to pull it off so flawlessly.

I've been throwing around words like "beautiful," "tragic," and "painful" a lot in this review. But those are the only words I know of to describe this film. Please, see it. If nothing else, it will make you hug your grandparents extra tight the next time you see them. But it will also make you contemplate the meaning of love and how it binds us together, oftentimes in impossible situations. Amour is a moving, exquisite film that stares love and death in the face and refuses to blink.

-- Yankee Belle