#3: Amour

LOVE’S LABOURS LOST

I was late getting out the the Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield. But my friend reassured me that “nothing much happened” in Amour’s first five minutes. The same could be said about its next 120 minutes.

That’s not a slight against Amour. Fresh off the Palme d’Or-winning The White Ribbon, director Michael Haneke keeps the film deliberately simple. It follows the three classical unities of drama: action, place and time. A stroke. An apartment. A… couple of months. (I guess Haneke played it fast and loose with that last one.) It has all the scope of a Paranormal Activity film but it never fails to engage its audience. And all without a single ghost.

Watching Amour is a voyeuristic experience. We, the audience, look upon an elderly man. He struggles to adjust to life following his wife’s debilitating stroke. Amour doesn’t try to dazzle us with quick cuts. Each shot lasts thirty seconds, ten times longer than a Michael Bay film. As a result, we feel like outsiders, intruding into the couple’s most intimate moments. As these long, unflinching shots linger, our physical discomfort grows. We want to turn away but we can’t. We’re trapped – just as the elderly couple is trapped their tortured existence. Like the pair, we are partly to blame for our entrapment. We wanted to be here. We paid for the privilege. We asked to see these wretches at their most vulnerable. So Haneke takes advantage of our own vulnerability. He gives us not the film we want, but the film we deserve. He makes us watch – long after we wish we could stop.

Like the end of life, Amour’s ending is only a matter of time. It’s inevitable. There’s only one way it could end. And when our protagonist achieves catharsis, it is equally our catharsis. It is our tension that is released. Our emotions that our purged. As the credits roll silently, you walk out. Your body is in one piece. But your soul has been put through a wringer.

God, that was heavy. If you still want to see Amour after that, it’s up on Netflix. Anyhow, I’ll be back tomorrow (Christmas Eve!) with #2. The proud winner of 2012’s “Best Full-Frontal Male Nudity, Shot From Behind.” And no – it’s not Magic Mike.