Michael Haneke, the Austrian director of the 2012 French film Amour, has broken boundaries and pushed the limits of filmmaking with his painful and authentic portrayal of aging, love, and life. His film follows the lives of an elderly Parisian couple, Georges and Anne, after Anne has two strokes that leave her ill and incoherent. Georges’s loyalty and love for his wife is put to the test as Anne slips into complete dependence. Amour does what no American film has been able to do; it captures the true nature of old age, love, and the suffering that comes with the end of a life.

Traditionally, Hollywood chooses to portray the elderly in a way that makes them look like cartoons of themselves. There is seemingly no room in American cinema for what exists in the everyday life of someone later in their years. The reality of old age is often overlooked. Instead of the elderly being shown as real, complicated people, they are clichéd and stereotyped to the point of absurdity. Hollywood may choose to do this for multiple reasons, which could include both marketing and comic relief. It’s simply a fact that it’s a lot easier to sell a film with two young blondes at the center as opposed to a film about an aging French couple. There’s just more money in youth. And on comedies, old people are often used as a sort of gag, or as comic relief. Take, for example, the grandmother in the iconic 1989 Steve Martin comedy, Parenthood. Helen Shaw plays the role of a clueless, silly, and clownish old lady. However, amidst her self-deprecating jokes, she abruptly has a moment of profound wisdom at a key point in the film. She tells Steve Martin a thinly-disguised metaphor of life as a roller coaster. While it’s fine and somewhat harmless to have the occasional silly old lady, there should be a balance between the reality and the satire. There seems to be only a few notes for the elderly to play in Hollywood. There’s the silly old lady, and the grumpy old man, the wise old man, and the mean old lady who beats a man up with her purse. These views on old people simply aren’t realistic or complex; the film industry’s one-dimensional, shallow, and childish views of the elderly are far too common.            

Meanwhile, Amour is a subtle and carefully crafted film that takes a brutal look at the harshness of old age and the vastness of life and love. Anne and Georges live together in an apartment in Paris. The apartment itself is distinctly cultured and European. Bookshelves are crowded with newspapers, clocks and leather-bound hardcovers. Both the study and the kitchen are ornate and somewhat antique, but there is an unquestionable claustrophobia to the living space. The very apartment that bursts with culture and tastefulness is also dim and dark, and somewhat suffocating. After Anne unexpectedly goes through her first two strokes, the couple is thrown into a drastically different lifestyle. No longer are they able to go out and watch pianists perform, a pastime that Anne loved due to her career as a piano teacher. Instead of the quiet, settled life of a Parisian couple, they now live trapped in their own apartment that grows tighter and tighter as the movie and plot advances. Anne’s slow decline into dependence becomes more and more rapid. Meanwhile, Georges’s role in the relationship goes from husband to devoted and suffering caretaker. At some point during the film, we see Anne sitting in the bathtub, quiet and subdued, as Georges scrubs her naked body down tenderly with a rag. Anne’s eyes look into the distance, forlorn and at a loss, as Georges dedicatedly washes the shell of the woman he once knew. Georges, although at times annoyed and irritated at his suddenly constant workload, becomes sadly protective of Anne, and tries to maintain her dignity the way she would have wished for had she been able to voice her own wishes. For example, the couple’s daughter, Eva, pays a visit to the apartment to visit her ailing mother, only to find that Georges has locked the bedroom door and refuses to let anyone see Anne. After Eva’s teary and distraught insistence, Georges reluctantly allows her to see her mother, but Eva is greeted by a series of angry huffs and moans of “Mal! Mal!” from Anne. (“Mal” means “pain” in French). Although Georges’s love is proven to be loyal and unwavering for Anne throughout the film, the viewer doesn’t witness the true extent of his care for his wife until the very end of the film. As Anne moans “Mal, Mal!” as she does throughout a large portion of the film, Georges sits next to her on the bed and gently strokes her hand. He starts to tell her a story from his childhood and she calms down. And then, when he finishes speaking, in a moment of silence, he performs a devastating act of love and compassion. He reaches over and grabs a pillow. Georges proceeds to smother his ailing wife to death.

Amour is able to do more than many films on this subject can do; this movie gives an unsparing and often disturbing account of the end of life. Michael Haneke challenged multiple rules of filmmaking after producing a film like Amour, and was able to create a magnificent story using the elderly as its focus. He has defied conventions and proven to the world that it is possible to make a successful, Oscar-winning, and beautiful movie that focuses on old people and death. I believe that one reason Amour frightens and resonates with viewers is because of the sheer truthfulness of the film. This movie makes people feel mortal, and makes one realize that the end of life is inescapable. Amour’s refusal to stray from reality is scary and heartbreaking, all at once. This film uses subtlety in its writing, acting, and directing to make something many of us have never seen before. Amour’s characters are unbelievably well-developed, and by the end of the film, we are able to break down the multiple levels of personality each character possessed. Georges, for example, killed Anne not out of annoyance or anger or malice or heartlessness. Georges killed Anne purely out of love. This act, and Georges’s affection for Anne throughout the movie, shows that Amour discovered another side of love and life, a side we don’t often see. Amour shows the struggle of old age, something that is rarely shown on the big screen. Amour depicts the vastness of life and also its unavoidable end. Amour is a film that stays true to its style and its title, because the ultimate emotion and concept and idea that is conveyed through this film is, after all, love. And I think it is beyond question that giving new, complex meanings to words like “life” or “love” qualifies as groundbreaking.