AMOUR World Cinema

AMOUR won Michael Haneke his second Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Haneke also received the prize for his last film, THE WHITE RIBBON, which screened at AFI FEST in 2009. With AMOUR, Haneke gives us a masterpiece of compassion and tenderness told through the brilliant performances of two acting legends, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva. They play a married couple in their 80s whose long happy routine of life is sharply interrupted when a stroke causes one of them to gradually succumb to paralysis and dementia. The couple’s reaction is to retreat from the world – to the point of not even allowing their daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) into their apartment. She ultimately has to force her way inside in order to find out what is going on with her parents. The film is fearless in the way in which it embraces the impending tragedy. Without cliché or cynicism, Haneke gives us permission to believe that unconditional love will endure after death.