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Most of Haneke’s films share a common theme of being bleak and disturbing. He brings it to his
2012 film Amour about a couple's love being tested when they are at the end of their lives: in
sickness. Visually the film is aesthetically pleasing as the audience is in the apartment of the old
couple who were established musician teachers now living the rest of their days in what may be
their coffin. Michael Haneke's Amour challenges the audience to witness the final discomfort of
the old couple in their relationship in sickness and in health no matter how affluent they are.
I first watched Amour (2012) before reading Haneke's interview with SPIEGEL to get a better
understanding and unbiased judgement of who he is and what kind of filmmaker would make
this. The timeline of the events are slow paced like it was reflecting realtime of how much time is
left. The limitations on seeing the world outside kept me in the couples apartment focusing on
the 4 walls. It reminded me of the bottle episodes when I watched television shows where my
attention was kept in a singular area. Even though the primary setting of the film was in the
couples apartment, the detail in how they lived interested me. They have a music room filled
with sheet music, CDs, vinyl records, and the elephant in the room: the grand piano. Strangely
the only person in the film to touch the piano was the former student of Anne. But after talking
with him briefly it seemed like he had a grudge on how Anne taught him when he was young.
After hearing that Anne was starting to feel remorse on how she handled her students.
The film doesn't create any flashbacks but presents us with media from the past. While Anne
was going through the family photo albums the audience was presented with the past they had.
The nostalgia was burning and we are not able to see Anne’s face to see if she feels successful
or a failure. Her husband, Georges, doesnt react to the photo book either but to Anne’s face.
She even tells him to not look at her because as she turns every page he can only see every
version he lived and been through with her. The first silent seizure of Anne takes a pause in
George's life as later in the film he gets bad dreams or hallucinations of some sort that I would
guess in the finale was carbon monoxide poisoning. Due to the first scene of firefighters and
other folks wearing a mask. While health has been their main priority, the money they earned
years before could not benefit them. Georges hired two nurses to take turns in the week to take
care of Anne and a shopper to bring their groceries but their daughter has been absent and
almost barred from visiting her own parents. She is present but the conversation she brings
other than her family and accomplishments as a musician was about the money, selling the
house. She becomes paranoid and angry as her mom made George's promise to never send
her back to the hospital for proper care. The family structure crumbles until there is nothing left
to live and love for.
Haneke created a kind of discomfort that I even knew as a child it was inevitable. Anne would
have been able to live longer if she wasn't insecure about staying in the hospital that led to
Georges and Eva’s relationship with her to fall apart or make them more distant and afraid.
Though Haneke is not clinically depressed or insane, he was able to bring out a problem that
any person in modern society has: failure.
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