Film review - AMOUR

Before I talk about AMOUR, I need to say it is an excellent and outstanding film. Let's look at the awards got:

·Academy Award - Best Foreign Language Film

·Cannes Film Festival - The Palme d'Or

·Golden Globes, USA - Best Foreign Language Film

·César Awards, France - Best picture - Best Actor - Best Actress - Best director

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Needless to say, AMOUR is a wonderful cinematographic work. I think I don't want to prove it again here. I want to talk about this film because I want to learn some skills from it. Special director skills of presenting character's emotion.

AMOUR looks like a very simple film. Two old people with only a few other characters. Simple scene. Old topic(death and love). However, I notice that there are many imagery of pictures in the film. These pictures are arranged by director deliberately. Actually, they are all pregnant with meaning. It can help audiences to understand the inner world of characters.

Example 1:

After the concert, they come back to home. The old man finds there's a thief came to their house and broke the door. He remembers he has three to four friends' house had been stolen. He thinks a thief come to their house is sooner or later.

Actually, "thief" here also means "disease" and "death". In the next few minutes of film, the old man go to join an old friend's funeral. Already three to five old friend has been dead, just like "be stolen". Director wants to present character's idea through use "thief" story. I believe in this part, director wants to tell us, the old man knows birth and old age, sickness and death are the law of life. What he can do is accepted and face it. Even it's very cruel.

Example 2:

This scene is the old man's dream. A nightmare. In the beginning of the dream, everything is normal. He is brushing teeth. Suddenly, he heard someone knock on the door. He doesn't know who and he asked. But no one answers.(When we face in predicament, predicament never talks to us) So he opens the door and he finds the lift is on the fritz.(Just like the later life, trouble unceasing) Then, he goes to the corridor and he finds his feet are stepping in the water.(Water should not appear in the corridor. If it appeared, that's mean pipe broke. Water here means the old man is in the trouble, and he cannot find the direction, he must deal with trouble alone)  Unexpectedly, a hand come out to cover up his mouth from the back of his head, every audience had been scared at the moment, but what's that mean? Just a bad dream? I consider this hand is the force majeure of the old man's life.

Someone knocks the door, he has to open the door. His wife sick, he has to care for her. However, he still doesn't know whether his wife will get well. Just like he doesn't who knocked. Death and disease are the force majeure, he cannot fight with the hand in his dream, because he is an old man step in the water.