Amour has been eulogised around the world. Not quite sure I agree with that for the following reason. Had the film been edited down by about 45 minutes, this would have produced a much better result for me. It's much too long, with unnecessary lingering shots, sometimes of nothing, presumably to try to emphasise points, but I just found them boring. I was hypnotised by the first quarter of an hour, but that didn't hold up for the rest of the film. One further scene really grabbed my attention which I thought was going to be a really sinister storyline, but it just turned out to be a dream sequence, although a nightmare. Then it faded. Not knowing the storyline, at first I thought it was going to be about dementia, but it was about a stroke victim, played by Emmanuelle Riva. A harrowing performance I agree, but it puzzles me that she had so many accolades tossed at her, including an Oscar nomination, when in fact I thought that Jean-Louis Trintingnant's performance was much superior. All she had to do was sit or lay quietly for most of the time as she slowly acted out her demise, whereas Trintingnant has the much larger role of having to cope and care for her and express his horror and ultimately despair at her demise. He should have got the Oscar nomination in my opinion. The wonderful Isabelle Huppert has little to do as their middle aged daughter other than to add a big name. Gripping in places but ultimately too long and I thought the ending was confusing. I wasn't really sure what happened here, the director's little touch, but if that doesn't quite reach the audience and leaves them wondering, oh! what happened there, I'm not sure that's a good thing. I was surprised when the credits rolled and I was expecting something else to be shown. 6 stars only.
Review of Amour
