We were at film club again this week and this time to see the 2012 French drama, 'Amour' (which is French for Love if you're in need of severe help) directed by Michael Haneke. I had high hopes for this as it looked like a nice arty love story that would get us both emotional. Sadly, it was probably one of the films I've least enjoyed at film club.
Although it is a good story and a sad one, it is unnecessarily long. I'm no length snob, but at over 2 hours it is way too long and so much time is taken up by mundane things - staring out a window, making tea, forced pigeon imagery. The problem with Amour is that it didn't try hard enough - it was dull. The story follows an elderly couple who struggle to cope when the wife gets dementia and he has to care for her. The ending, where the husband murders his wife out of pity can be seen a mile off and in my opinion the whole film isn't an accurate representation of dementia and other memory illnesses. It didn't go far enough into emotions of both the couple and those around them and other factors which come in when someone dear is very ill. Sorry about the spoiler just then but you kind of already know from the off what happens because the film begins with the wife dead on her bed.
However I must commend the two lead roles -Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva who were both superb and it was more the screenplay that let the film down and not them at all. Although we were left disappointed, we are looking forward to the next offering, 'Ginger and Rosa' in 2 weeks time. It was also fun to stuff our face with ice cream and make Michael Myers jokes (much to the fury of someone in front of us).
Overall rating: 5/10
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