Aside from that, it was an overly long, humorless, bitter, boring snoozefest with subtitles. Dreadful.
Subtitles? Speak for yourself instead of making this some generally meaningful statement. You need subtitles only if you don't know French. Your loss, not everybody's. This forum is in English but not exclusively for anglophones, so try to say things that have more universal significance. It's like a deaf person saying "Hey! This movie sucks! And it's got sound too! Which nobody can hear!"
That being said, this is among the most poignant, painfully realistic and tragically human movies ever made on the exceedingly non-commercial topic of the ugliness of getting old and sick. One must be an insensitive blockhead not to be deeply moved by this courageous movie played by extraordinarily talented and true-to-life actors such as Trintignant, Riva and Huppert. Manipulative? Exploitative? I can understand someone very young labeling this movie with such terms. But, if you have ever seen one of your parents end up being as diminished as a human being as Anne was in the movie, inasmuch if you have known him/her as a bright, vivacious, intellectually and spiritually alert person as Anne appeared to have been, you would undoubtedly understand the terrible dilemma the husband was caught in. Is the solution shown the only brave thing to do? Probably not, but I could certainly relate to his despair, which was unfathomable for his daughter but which I could see myself so very well.
Euthanasia is not something to condone or condemn with a single, sweeping, all-encompassing statement or sentence. Personally, I would not hesitate asking for a merciful end to my last days was I to find myself in the predicament Anne found herself. Unable to communicate, yet I do believe she was lucid and aware of her situation, which was causing indescribable suffering to her and her husband. In my country, we now have a law that allows euthanasia (under another moniker, yet being all the same) under certain very specific conditions. That option was not available to Trintignant's character in
Amour, hence the tragic end.
Hanneke's movie is anything but a pretentious moralizing speech against the natural aspect of death. It's an actual masterpiece. One of the most difficult movies to watch, only because it rings so true to the reality of death. It's neither a tale trying to deter us from facing the difficulties of getting old. I see it as a more specific story about a certain type of death that is just as absurd as prolonging life against any reasonable motive with artificial life-preserving systems for persons whose all attributes that make them human (as in "setting them apart from a sponge") have essentially vanished, i.e. in a vegetative state. With palliative care, persons with almost any deadly illness, except dementia, can die with a certain "quality of life" till the very end. There is no justifiable reason for euthanasia ( or "merciful termination of life" if one wants to be hypocritical about it) in such cases as in most situations. However, with the growing incidence of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia nowadays, there is an increasing number of cases where the question of the prolongation of the existence of beloved ones becomes painfully relevant. Within the parameters of well-written laws that ought to prevent euthanasia when dubious motives lie behind its request, it should be possible to allow "merciful termination of life" to avoid further suffering for family and/or other persons in charge of their well-being and safety. I have lost my mother a few years ago. She was suffering from Lewy bodies dementia, an especially severe and rapidly progressing form of dementia with Parkinson's symptoms on top of it. I have been confronted with something akin to the same dilemma as Georges was in the movie. And I understood him perfectly well.
So beware of judging Georges' acts too harshly. Of course it's only a movie, but such movies are so realistic that our attitudes and ideas are put to an actual reality check upon their viewing.
If you haven't watched Amour yet, please don't pay too much attention to all the hate or disdain that's present throughout this forum. It's an extraordinary film and you will remember it with vivid memories, and I think maybe until you are yourself confronted with a similar situation...
Is it safe? What is safe? Is it safe? Yes, very safe? Is it safe? No, not at all! Is it safe? Aaahh!
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