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| AMOUR's Directer Michael Haneke with Riva, and Trintignant |
Should Amour and Quartet ever appear on a double bill (I dare them), see Quartet last, you'll leave the theatre with hope and joy instead of depression, dread, or, in horror. Both films had been nominated for Academy Awards in various categories so are still playing in some art houses (check the listings), or you can get them on Netflix. They are excellent portrayals of the lives of the elderly. Amour, a French film with English subtitles, written and directed by Michael Haneke, stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva. Haneke is known for dark, disturbing flicks such as White Ribbon, set in a small village in Germany dealing with the corruption of repressed children of strict, moralistic parents. Trintignant is best known for the political film Z, and And God Created Woman (with Bridgette Bardot). Riva's earlier and best known films (in America) are Three Colors: Blue, a trilogy; and Hiroshima, mon Amour. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as Anne in Amour, and should have won.
Amour tells the story of a talented, musical couple in their eighties, Anne (Riva) and Georges (Trintignant), who have retired and now teach music privately. The film opens with the concierge, police, and detectives entering the couple's flat. They search cluttered rooms- the kitchen with dirty dishes in the sink and a half-eaten meal on the table. A detective holds his hand over his nose. Not a good sign. Breaking through a door that had been sealed with packing tape, they discover the cause of the bad odor- a body, fully dressed, lying on a bed. The film then flashes back to a concert given by one of Anne's former students who's become famous. Haneke, rather than show the pianist at work, focusses on the audience in a wide shot. I searched for the couple, detecting them by Trintignant's unmistakable leonine head, in the 3rd or 4th row center. Except for a few scenes, most of the film was shot in rich brown and gold tones in the couple's spacious but modest Paris flat situated in an old neighborhood.
The first hint of what's in store takes place at breakfast where the couple, in their robes, sit at a small table in a cramped kitchen, chatting amiably. Suddenly, Anne doesn't respond, but stares vacantly. Alarmed, Georges touches her cheek, then gets a wet towel from the sink, leaving the water running. He pats her face and neck. Still no response. He phones for help from another room and hears the water being shut off. Back in the kitchen, Anne berates him for not turning off the water. She remembers absolutely nothing about what just happened.
Quartet, a British film, in English with British accents (ha ha), is Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut. It was was originally a play by Ronald Harwood, who also wrote the screenplay. The movie is also about elderly musicians but whose lives are completely different. They've retired to a luxurious assisted-living home set in the English countryside. The residence is tantamount to a four-star hotel where you take your meals in a beautifully appointed dining room while maids tidy up the rooms. In Amour, Anne and Georges have no outside help save for the concierge, who does their shopping.
Things go from bad to worse when Anne suffers a stroke that leaves her partially paralyzed; attendants wheel her home from the hospital while Georges watches men set up her hospital bed. He pushes her from room to room until she upgrades to electric and learns to maneuver about the flat, barely fitting through narrow passageways. She can sit in her chair, lie in bed, converse with him, and read. Yet he must lift her from chair to bed and help her from the toilet when she calls, "I'm through!" Frail and elderly himself, he struggles with her, breathing hard. At times he just stands there. "Stop peering at me!" she barks. You sense his helplessness and her frustration. Anne's famous student pays a visit which turns awkward. The only people they see are the concierge and her husband. Another stroke leaves her bedridden and barely able to speak. Georges hires a nurse for a few hours a day; she shows him how to change her diapers, a difficult scene to watch; he fires one nurse for treating his wife roughly and insensitively.
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| The QUARTET: Connolly, Smith, Courtenay, and Collins |
The title, Quartet, is based on four opera stars, Cissy Robson, Wilf Bond, Reginald Paget, and Jean Horton, played by Pauline Collins, Billy Connolly, Tom Courtenay, and Maggie Smith, respectively, who became famous singing the quartet from Rigoletto. A best-selling CD came out, giving them a wider audience. Unlike Haneke, Hoffman puts distance between the unsettling, very real aspects of aging, and the audience. If someone has a stroke, you watch with the residents through a curtained window as the victim is trundled away on a gurney to an ambulance.
Screenwriter Harwood touches on the onset of Alzheimer's in the character of Cissy Robson. Her illness is exacerbated by bitchy ex-opera diva, Jean Horton. There are scenes of musicians getting together to play their instruments, and divas and divos singing arias in their rooms. Horton, who shows up about a third of the way into the film, is loathe to be relegated to the retirement home, knowing she'll have to face sniping, slights, and jealousies harbored for decades. She has history with Paget (Tom Courtenay) to whom she was married for a few hours, decades ago. Others know of their past and gossip deliciously. Some retirees, stuck in their by-gone glories, listen to their recordings repeatedly, longingly. Others are happy to be alive and living with creative, vibrant elders.
The young staff is both cheeky and efficient. We could call Wilf Bond "a dirty old man" if the female staff reacted to him as one, but they don't. They joke about age-related infirmities, impotence, and diseases with fatalistic acceptance. When relatives come to visit, they include other residents in their conversations and encourage their children to greet them. The equivalent of pool-boys maintain the well-manicured garden; they banter with the men, flirt with the staff, as well as female residents; some delight in the attention.
One issue I had with Amour is its depressing claustrophobic atmosphere. Would that Haneke had included a scene or two of Georges taking Anne out for a walk in her wheelchair around the leafy neighborhood. The only lightness occurs during her rare lucid moments when she reminisces with him about their past, or when they sing a phrase or two from a favorite song. Thankfully, Haneke stayed away from any kind of smarmy soundtrack to clue us in on how we should feel. In the silence, the audience hears sad, disturbing sounds: laborious breathing, uneven, shuffling footsteps, gasps, and groans. Before Anne became bedridden, the couple sat in the living room, not talking, but reading and listening to music, surrounded by books, sculptures, and prints of well-known impressionist paintings.
Their selfish daughter, Eva, played by Isabelle Huppert, and seemingly clueless son-in-law, Geoff (William Shemill), who live abroad, come to visit when they are in Paris. Sitting by Anne's bedside, Eva talks about her parent's property and other financial matters; Anne is flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Prompted to speak, she utters a few nonsensical words, which sends Eva into the study, to complain to her father that her mother is "speaking gibberish." On another brief visit, Eva angers Georges by suggesting solutions, questioning why Anne isn't in the hospital. He tells her, she had made it clear she did not want to end up in one. There are heartbreaking scenes of Georges trying to read or listen to music in the living room while Anne lies in bed, moaning in pain.
Back to Quartet: The home needs major repairs or it will close. To save it, the residents must raise money, so in true Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney style, they hold a concert. Two of the singers had been bawdy pop song artists and music hall comedians. The director, flamboyant, garrulous Cedric Livingston (Michael Gabon), swanning about in a robe and embroidered pill-box hat, cringes at this prospect feeling that their act will sully the event. Horton balks at reprising a past success, but through a kind of reconciliation with Paget, finally agrees. Cissy's stage fright brings on a memory lapse, but is saved by Horton's kind ministrations. The competent, young manager of the home, Dr. Lucy Cogan (Sheridan Smith), gives a thank you speech. The evening concert goes on in front of a huge crowd. The camera dollies back on a the exterior of the home- windows shining golden from every room- as the strains of the quartet from Rigoletto soar over the grounds and into the night air. Quartet was based on real people and real events which are revealed during the final credits. If this film is any indication of Hoffman's directorial skills, I hope it won't be his last.
Amour leaves a few questions unanswered. Where was Georges in the opening scene? And where is he now? The movie ends with Eva walking through the clean, well-ordered flat. When and why is she there? You get nothing from her on her feelings of what had happened to her parents. Regardless, it's an engaging, thoughtful, realistic film- an unsettling look at an unavoidable event that we all must face, but hopefully not in the way that Anne did. Unless we die young; yet even then-
To the writers' credit, no character in either film, whether elderly or not, used the appalling phrase: "senior citizen." Ever.
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