Michael Haneke’s Amour is about love as we near the end of life and is so painful it isn’t a film to ‘like’ or ‘enjoy’ but is one you do have to see. It’s amazing. It is, effectively, two hours and seven minutes of watching someone die, but it is riveting, and I’m still jangling from it. Haneke has taken the ordinary — getting old; dying; happens to us all; no exceptions — and has transformed it into something so literate, powerful, terrifying, intelligent and extraordinary. I’m still jangling from it, and expect to jangle until at least next Wednesday, if not Friday week. Actually, that’s overoptimistic. This is one of those films that, I suspect, is going to stay with me for life, and I’d best get used to it. As it is, I’ve already booked our holiday for next year. (Turkey, since you ask.)
This is a film which asks: what happens to love when the person you love is no longer that person?
This stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva in two of the most shatteringly good performances you will see for an unspecified time period.
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When Howard Amos first came to Russia, in 2007, it was a country you visited with interest, even enthusiasm. Modernisation, potentially a progressive development, was on the cards; America was getting ready to ‘reset’ US-Russian relations; foreigners were able to volunteer at Russian orphanages. That was what Amos did, working with disadvantaged children in Pskov
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