Amour (12A)

p.s. @ Nadine Lacoste: If you are in Los Angeles, you can see Amour right now at the Sundance Theatres multiplex on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights, which, incidentally, has been refurbished, is wonderfully comfortable, has a full bar in the lobby, comfortable leather armchairs and sofas in an upstairs foyer, and beautifully-spaced and designed seating. And doesn't allow under 21's in for *any* movie! I'm singing its praises because I just got back from seeing Amour there, and it was my first visit in over a year - terrific place. Amour is also playing at the Arclight Cinema in the Beach Cities, if you happen to live out there.

Dave Calhoun has got it absolutely right: "staggering, highly intelligent and astonishingly performed work. It’s a masterpiece." Although he misses something with this statement: "Our only glimpses of the outdoors are seen through the windows of the flat. This is a drama played out under grey clouds. There’s no storm, just gradual changes from one day, week or month to the next." We in fact get more than a glimpse of the outdoors, via the medium of the paintings which hang on the walls of the aprtment and which obviously have been acquired over a lifetime together - one of the earliest expressions of Georges' fear concerns a neighbor whose apartment was burgled, the paintings cut from their frames. As, in a sense, Anne is being gradually removed from Haneke's framing of the story. At one moment, Haneke chooses to cut together a montage of the paintings in close up. Beautiful and evocative, even mesmerising, the paintings are all landscapes and are dominated by deep and storm-cloud laden skies that, collectively, evoke the gathering storm in Georges and Anne's lives which Calhoun mentions. A deeply moving and unforgettable film, for *real* grown-ups.

Anyone who thinks this movie is boring, has absolutely no sense of cinema or story telling. It was a wonderful movie.

J'habite a Los Angeles CA USA je voudrai savoir ou je peux aller voir ce film. Merci

@Hanna: My understanding was he died/committed suicide. That part when both of them walked out together to me means that she came back from the dead to"fetch "him so they can be together. It is a great movie for the right to choose how and when you die (with dignity preferably).

I am so confused with the ending as well. Did he die? or did he just disappear??? please someone help explain what happened to Georges?!?!

great movie ............. feelings in this movie speachless ......i have never seen such a great movie in my life ..........hats offffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Yes, please explain the ending. The husband seems to walk out of the apartment. Does he disappear--what happens to him? The firemen break into the flat with no mention of the husband's whereabouts.

Wonderful actors. Beautiful, yet intentionally (and unsurprisingly) disturbing, love story with at times very moving and tender moments; but also some seriously ice-cold clinical ones, especially when peripheral characters appear - reinforcing the sense of isolation and other-wordly estrangement of the two main characters. Needless to say it raises important and uncomfortable questions regarding the treatment (or rather scientifically-managed processing) of end of life in modern societies. Somehow (in my modest opinion) the movie lacks a tiny little supplément d’âme to reach masterpiece status, but it is precisely perhaps the virtue of its imperfections to provide its viewers with ample space to meditate on their personal experiences. This movie will age well.

This must be the most over-rated film of 2012. While it has good performances, it is largely unimaginative and very narrow in taking on its themes of death and existential meaning. Many of the scenes are set up in a mundane, predictable way, and the film shows us little we don't know already. Give me Bergman's Cries and Whispers anytime.