Love

Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), both around 80, spend their time in loving togetherness. The retired music professors enjoy their little rituals and their quiet everyday life, which they don't let spoil even when they discover after a concert visit that their home has been burgled. Their happiness is shattered on a perfectly normal morning when Anne has a seizure, which she can't remember afterwards. An operation follows, after which nothing is as it once was. Anne, now hemiplegic, wrings a promise from her husband never to put her in a hospital or even a nursing home again. Georges promises her and from then on takes care of his wife sacrificially. More and more she slips away from him, less and less she has in common with the woman he shared his life with. But one thing never changes: George's fervent love for his Anne...

Love is in many ways a typical Michael Haneke film. Not only the names of the two main characters the drama has in common with many of its predecessors, also the sometimes very long shots and the sometimes hard to bear realism can be described as usual stylistic devices for the director. The difference here is merely their effect. For what was shocking especially in Funny Games, but in some respects also in Cache, or seemed extremely depressing in Das weiße Band, Love has an atmosphere all of its own. It's hard, sometimes downright unbearable, to watch Anne slowly die. Yet the film also leaves you with a very beautiful feeling, after all, Georges' actions in the face of this difficult situation are an expression of the deepest and most sincere love. And this is also transmitted to the viewer, who is thus also better able to bear Anne's suffering.

The superb performances of Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, who act almost exclusively in a set modeled after Hanekes apartment, make this drama, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, an outstanding piece of sophisticated acting cinema. As such, the film is absolutely worth watching for all lovers of first-rate and challenging arthouse cinema.

Nevertheless, it must also be said that many viewers may have a hard time engaging with the film and its story. For me, for instance, cinema is primarily a place to escape reality. As much as I can recognize and appreciate the work of the actors and the outstanding production, I simply have a hard time watching a film in which I have to watch a human being slowly die for over two hours. Watching this couple in moments of utmost vulnerability, of intimate togetherness, has almost a voyeuristic quality to me at times. The fact that I felt this way, however, is at the same time a testimony to the high quality of the film, to the authentic and extremely strong acting of the actors and the realistic staging of the director.

For those who want to escape reality in the cinema, Michael Haneke is clearly the wrong director. But those who can and want to engage with the difficult and sometimes very tough production will most definitely be able to discover what power love can have in life and in film - a power that goes beyond death.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp