"AMOUR"
LOVE, HAND IN HAND WITH INFINITY
By Nevin Ulusoy
“AMOUR”- LOVE, HAND IN HAND WITH INFINITY
Love, the magical word that embraces everybody’s hearts, the sweet melody of spring of life. Love, the main theme of most of the songs, books and films, the heart of fairy tales. What we talk about most and also what we lack most, love that really kindles the heart of humanity and extends to the heart of our planet. Love, we seek most of our lives and most say do not exist, true love, starting in the young souls and never-ending in the elderly eyes of the beloved. “Amour”, mesmerizing Austrian director Michael Haneke’s unforgettable film probes the story of a couple who look at each other’s wrinkled faces with the eyes of young love through the hardships of old age and time.
“Amour” was directed in 2012, it is in French and it takes place in Paris, mostly in the old couple’s old flat. The film got Palme d’or in Cannes Film Festival in 2012. The film also won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2013. It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director. Jean- Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva and Isabelle Huppert act in the film. Riva was the oldest nominee in the history of the academy awards, she was 85 at that time. She had also acted in “Hiroshima, Mon Amour”, Alain Resnais’ terrific film of 1959. The scenario was written by the wonderful writer Marguerita Duras.
Love is not only the fire that burns in the veins, intoxicates the waves of breath. It is an everlasting “Table for Two”, what Abel Korzeniowski’s song makes us see. Love that walks on to infinity hand in hand with respect by turning into a depth of feelings whose fire never ends.
The film starts with a concert and it is the last time they go out together. The woman was a piano teacher and the film has the notes of the piano as it goes on. As they have their cosy breakfast, the man looks at her with the eyes of a young lover we feel that the woman’s infinite beauty is sealed in his eyes. He knows the unique lines he has fallen in love with beneath the deep wrinkles by heart, without ever forgetting. All of a sudden a kind of illness seizes her, the hospital, the operation. They have a daughter, she tries to help as well. The mother is physically helpless and needs to be looked after. He is with her all the time and they do not even want their daughter to be with them. The daughter says how she listened to their bedroom door when she was a child, how she found peace and believed that it was the guarantee of their always being together. The definition of the family is this feeling maybe, not the girl whose parents do not sleep together and who finds peace under the table,all alone, with her dreamy friends. It is very different from the atmosphere of a family of people who are together just to make each other unhappy and the girl who breathes in this house, grows up there. We feel the atmosphere of the loving family as we look at the daughter’s eyes as she tells them to her father.
As they have their cosy breakfast, the man looks at her with the eyes of a young lover we feel that the woman’s infinite beauty is sealed in his eyes. He knows the unique lines he has fallen in love with beneath the deep wrinkles by heart, without ever forgetting.
The woman gets worse, the man really tries hard, to feed her, to make her talk, sing, remind the beautiful life they have shared together and would be utterly meaningless without the other. Love is lived through with two people, even the children cannot be in it. A pigeon gets in the house from the open window, this house that pain reigns and it brings the vividity of life home. Life gets more and more unbearable, the pain the woman feels is in the man’s soul all the time. We remember how painful the woman’s illness in John Banville’s novel “The Sea” and how the man felt hollow inside, how everything lost its meaning, without his love near him.
We question the meaning of love again, this magical word that everybody loves to talk about. Love means loyalty and trust also, as in Metallica’s song “Nothing Else Matters”. Love is not only the fire that burns in the veins, intoxicates the waves of breath. It is an everlasting “Table for Two”, what Abel Korzeniowski’s song makes us see. Love that walks on to infinity hand in hand with respect by turning into a depth of feelings whose fire never ends. As Jim Morrison says,love is not all about joy: ” People talk about how great love is…Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they are afraid to feel?”