Love is measured in devotion, and devotion in the minutes and hours of suffering, in this harrowing and moving romance from Austrian master Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon, Cache). Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva play a long-married couple trying to adjust as the wife, a piano teacher, suffers a series of strokes that leave her paralyzed and finally bedridden. Anger, humiliation, and despair all take their toll, but Riva, extraordinary in the role, also communicates the class, intelligence, and beauty that the husband still sees. His tireless attention to her as her body breaks down and her spirit wilts is a thing of wonder to Haneke, who has put his finger on a very particular kind of heartbreak: seeing a lover give up not on you but on the life you’ve shared. In French with subtitles.
Till death do us part
In Michael Haneke’s Amour, a husband and wife face their last days together.
