Amour (Michael Haneke)

Love.

Love stories on films are meant to make us feel a sense of sweetness within. Be it through chance encounters, tender reconciliations or mutual affections that extend through time, romance films are those extra sugar cubes that sweeten the occasional bitterness in our lives. But what if a film suddenly enters our collective consciousness, dare proclaiming that love, after all, is not really all about flowers and chocolates but, in its very essence, all about pain? "Amour", a most devastating film by Michael Haneke, may just be that very film, and trust me, if this won't add a much-needed depth to your outlook on love, then I believe nothing will. 

     

Although I sure do think, without a single doubt in my mind, that "Amour" is one of the absolute best films of the year (if not the very best), the film's style and execution, especially in its lack of musical scoring and often stagnant shots, may surely off-put some viewers. But for some who consider silence and subtlety as two of the most powerful tools in conveying emotions and whatnot, then "Amour" will surely impress. 

     

With two French screen legends in the form of Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva (with Isabelle Huppert on the side) joining emotional forces to tell us a tale that may very well be the most truthful love story there is, "Amour" has managed to be unforgettably tender and powerfully disquieting at the same time. With no formal narrative to guide the film save for the elderly couple's (played by Trintignant and Riva) confined everyday lives, "Amour" is that rare kind of film that gets its strength not from the plot basics but from the very essence of the characters that inhabit it, and we only have the aforementioned screen legends to thank for it. 

     

Trintignant, who I have first set my eyes upon (and loved) in Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Conformist", is honest, understated and very romantically proud as Georges, a retired music teacher who is suddenly faced with the biggest challenge of love when Anne (Riva), her wife, was suddenly rendered half-paralyzed by a surgery gone wrong. 

     

As naturally effortless as he is overwhelmingly moving, Trintignant's Georges goes through the debilitating burden of taking care of his ill-stricken spouse with a mountainous sense of dignity and individualism. Although Haneke has molded the character with an inscrutable sense of pride, we are nevertheless drawn to painfully empathize with his situation because it's all too real and also because, at one point or another, we'll just be like him. I, for one, slightly know how he feels. My great grandmother, in her dying days, was exactly just like Anne, and I had the privilege to take care of her through two sleepless nights.  

     

This therefore brings me to Emmanuelle Riva's unbelievably realistic performance as Georges' better half. Yes, Emmanuelle Riva, the very same, conflicted woman in "Hiroshima Mon Amour" whose beauty contrasts the said film's tumultuous romantic themes, now bedridden and merely speaking in tongues. As much as "Amour" is an honest evocation of the final frontiers of love, it's also a film that's knee-deep in demythologization, specifically in how Michael Haneke has reduced an immortal screen beauty like Emmanuelle Riva into nothing more than an old, dying woman pitifully confined within the four corners of a reclining bed. Riva's portrayal of Anne, for me, is not really a performance per se but more a bitter confrontation of both reality and mortality, and it's just quite stunning to behold. 

     

"Amour", Michael Haneke's most personal film (the events in "Amour" is based on his first-hand experiences of dealing with his disease-stricken aunt) and may also be the most truthful one in relation to who he really is as a filmmaker, is a clear-cut masterpiece. Once known for his violently polarizing films, Haneke has now made a film so romantically powerful that it makes you forget that the film, after all, stars two elderly people. 

     

Admittedly, there will come a point in our lives where we'll go all apprehensive about growing old and whether or not the hands we're holding on right now, as the best years of our lives slowly fade away, will still hold on tight. "Amour", a film that proves unto me that there will always be beauty in subtlety, reassures me that, yes, they definitely will. Faith in love: quite restored.

FINAL RATING

Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)

Waiting.

Love. Oh how sweet and promising it really is when it first flourishes between two people's hearts. It shows how everything seems to be all too easy, how nothing seems to hinder no one, and how everyone around you is but a blurring haze. That is the description of 'love' in the earliest of its budding, but when all those reside somewhere into a corner and reality once again sets in, well, what then? "Blue Valentine", a heartbreaking, charmingly funny yet emotionally draining independent film that depicts with utter realism and emotions stripped off of all the gloss of cinematic consciousness, the disillusioning eventuality of the aforementioned romantic euphoria.

The film, directed by Derek Cianfrance and shown in a 'back and forth' non-linear structure, perfectly captured both a relationship's magical first weeks to the shattering trials and slowly settling indifference of the latter ones. The couple, Dean and Cindy, (performances by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams that certainly warrant spots in a shortlist of best performances of 2010) although with a hint of an escalating spatial gap, clearly still have love for each other. And unlike other films who show a couple's connection through quick smiles, hugs and kisses, Dean and Cindy's relational strength are underlined by hardships.

Of course there's a time where the film seems to slightly go into romantically 'cute' sequences to develop both the characters' mutual affection, but between those lines, we see the passiveness of their deteriorating love. In the opening scene, we see Dean, along with their daughter, go into their bedroom to wake Cindy up. Dean dives into the bed and playfully kisses Cindy, but she shrugs off. From that scene onwards, I think it's fair to say that at least we can weigh it off that Dean is much more enthusiastic to redeem their downward spiral of a marriage than his wife. He even sets up a romantic revitalization of sorts in a 'future' room (filled with all those sci-fi buttons and stuff) in a themed motel with Cindy.

But the thing with Dean is, he's too defensively fragile. "You're never going to guess who I saw at the liquor mart." Cindy said to Dean while they're on their way to the motel. "Bobby Ontario", she then followed. It turns out, this Bobby Ontario is Cindy's old flame. And after hearing the name, Dean turns into a short silence and engaged into an uneasy argument with Cindy that furthered the fact that he is insecure with himself. And as what was subsequently followed by a conversation inside the said 'future' room between the two about what Dean really wants to do with his life aside from being a life-long blue collar worker, he is insecure with what he really want to be. A hint of an unconscious quarter-life crisis rising in the midst of a couple in trepidation. I think 'falling out of love' is an understatement.

Michelle Williams, in these scenes I've mentioned and a whole lot more, flawlessly inhabited the character Cindy's evolution from being an innocent young lover at a crossroads to an innocent young lover whose last-second epiphany taught her the ropes of 'responsibility' and finally, a wife whose own emotional exhaustion, because of an unhappy marriage, suggests desensitization.

Ryan Gosling, on the other hand, with his carefree demeanor all throughout the film, substantially portrayed Dean, a character of considerably stern masculinity (in terms of knowing what to do in the right times but sadly, barely knowing what to say in truly important ones) that despite of his educational limitations and lack of adequate parental guidance and upbringing, hesitates being meek in life.

Both characters are flawed, has gone through so much yet still knew too little. As their utterances of 'for better or for worse' fade into an ethereal image of their longingly long kiss, they have experienced with delight the 'better' but they have not prepared for the 'worse'. But aren't all couples?

"Blue Valentine", with its grounded approach to the nuances of love and the transformation of romantic warmth to consuming coldness, depicts love stripped bare from all the picture-perfect qualities of its immediate visualization upon the sweet acceptance of vows and wearing of the rings. And also explicitly shows the transitory pleasures and disappointments of the supposedly passionate sexual connection that comes with it.

Any imagination for a transcendental love will all be for naught once the storm settles in, and no motel room can rightfully compensate for the shortcomings of sex. But when it finally subsides and all seems to be back to the usual normality of marriage stability, then what? "Blue Valentine" supports the fact that though a marriage ceremony ends with short answers like 'I do' , every step from then on always begins with some questions, half-finished sentences, tearful apologies and even lessons along the way.

Beyond that point, 'Do I?' resonates more. It's not a question to fully reevaluate one's feelings toward his/her love, but an emotional disambiguation of a romantic perspective in a state of confusion and doubt. Love is too complex, tangled and often times painful a phenomenon that we just have to accept it as a fact. I'm sure "Blue Valentine" wholeheartedly does.

FINAL RATING

Awakenings (Penny Marshall)

Veterans Robert De Niro and Robin Williams in "Awakenings".

Film Review Archive (date seen: November 24, 2010)

There's always a recurring belief in Hollywood among actors that once you played an impaired character on film, then one can already consider him/herself "made". Honestly, that's what I initially thought of "Awakenings", a sentimental film that will do nothing but to put one of the missing pieces of De Niro's more than impressive resume' into place; oh, how wrong I was.

Though his performance was great, it was his sense of belonging among the other encephalitis-stricken characters that made the portrayal so absorbing. To a more flamboyant performer, he could have easily stole every single scene with some scenery-chewing moments. But De Niro, having to do justice to such a critical character, has carried himself with methodical devotion as Leonard Lowe. Going into great lengths to show the physical sufferings of an encephalitis victim, but also hinting, with subtle motions and glances, the depths of the characters' heart and the reaches of his mind that was enclosed inside a physical limbo for 30 years.

But the best performance came from Robin Williams (though not nominated for an Academy Award) as the socially awkward Dr. Sayer, whose characterization started in the middle but ended on something to begin with. My tears, tested by the span of years I've been watching films, are quite adamant to sentimental displays on screen. But this one, since "Letters from Iwo Jima", I think, finally persuaded them to just trickle down in peace. Although based on a true story, I will always think of the film's "awakenings" as a symbolic series of inner defiance, brought forth by the indomitable power of the human spirit struggling against the shackles of physical invalidity.

FINAL RATING