Michael Haneke's latest story of an octogenarian nursing his dying wife is brave and beautiful, but beware if you're over the age of 60
Art house cinemas attract a clientele that is fairly advanced in age. This is especially true during the day and during the winter when everyone else is still at work. Given the type of fare that art houses specialise in, patrons take in a steady diet of films about foundering string quartets, courageous Afghan songbirds, iconoclastic pedagogues, the French.
But because they shun the trashy fare at multiplexes, and because not all foreign or independent movies are life-affirming paeans to mysterious folksingers and lovable pickpockets, art house patrons also end up seeing a fair number of movies about socially maladjusted wrestlers, murderous tyrants, incompetent drug dealers, and young women who lose their lower legs thanks to the hijinks of frisky orcas. Sometimes these audiences get more than they bargained for.
A case in point: last week I went to see Amour, Michael Haneke's lavishly praised new film. In it, the superb, vastly underappreciated Jean-Louis Trintignant plays Georges, an octogenarian nursing his dying wife Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) through the final stages of her stay on this planet. The movie, which meticulously chronicles Anne's descent into paralysis, periodic catatonia and dementia, is incredibly moving and incredibly sad, shot in such a way that you feel you are in the room with these people. Georges and Anne are music teachers, and the life they have made together has been filled with joy and beauty. The joy and beauty are now gone, as the film makes clear, inexorably wending its way toward its devastating conclusion. Amour is a love story, yes, and a very beautiful one. But it is graphic, wrenching, and ultimately heartbreaking. No one comes out of the cinema with a bounce in their step and a song in their heart.
At the end of the movie, as I have been doing since I was a little kid: I applauded. Usually when I do this, people join in. They do so because they are drawn back to a time in their lives when they did not take motion pictures for granted, when going to the movies was absolutely thrilling. But this time, nobody joined in. When I got up and turned around, I saw row after row of stunned, silent seniors. They looked shell-shocked. No one was talking. A woman sitting two rows behind me seemed to wonder what I was clapping about. Had I actually enjoyed seeing an old woman go down for the count like that? Did I find this amusing?
All this falls under the general rubric of Caveat Emptor, or Think About Reading a Movie Review Or Two Before Taking in Your Next Film. I am still only 62, not yet being actively stalked by the grim reaper, yet Amour depressed the hell out of me. Luckily for my wife, I expect to die before I reach the age of 80 so she probably won't have to worry about taking care of me for any extended period of time. Nor will I have to worry about taking care of her. Which is a relief, because the movie underscores what I have long believed, that if there is anything to look forward to on the other side of 80, I sure haven't seen it.
I have always been fascinated by audiences that wander into the wrong film. Teens at a Kristin Scott-Thomas offering. Hipsters at a presentation of The Horse Whisperer. Refined, sensitive, mature women at a showing of The Passion of the Christ. I always wonder whether the string of violent, idiotic trailers previewed before the film might not be a giveaway that these folks have bitten off more than they can chew. This is something that fascinates me about art houses: their reliable role in providing their mature and heavily female clientele with a steady stream of films that won't make them feel good. Films about concentration camps. Films about paedophiles. Films about death.
As you study their expressions of distress or discomfort when they emerge from the cinema, you cannot help asking yourself: "Seriously, ladies, what were you thinking? Did you honestly expect a Mel Gibson film about Jews to be thoughtful? Uplifting? Fun?"
Which brings us back to Amour. A great film. A courageous film. The kind of film that young people should go to see, as it will teach them compassion and respect for those who have gone before them, and will also teach them the meaning of love. Be that as it may, Amour is the kind of film that people of advanced years should go to see only if they know what they're letting themselves in for. I myself am already making a note to myself to start exercising more caution when going to the movies. Pay attention to the reviews. Listen to friends' comments. One thing I know for sure: if I do live to be 80, I am definitely not going to spend my afternoons watching French films about intellectuals succumbing to the ravages of dementia. I'm more likely to go see the French film about the woman who loses her lower legs to a rambunctious orca. It's sad. It's unnerving. But it's a lot less likely to happen to me.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2013/jan/31/amour-opposite-feel-good-cinema
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