Age brings with it an inevitable degree of physical and cognitive decline. At its worst, cognitive impairment can evolve into dementia, stealing us from our loved ones and ourselves. This has given rise to the recent concept of “the zeroth death” in which our mental self declines while the physical self continues in relative health, an addition to the existing idea of how we undergo three deaths, the physical, the social (burial, for example), and the point at which we are remembered for the final time.  

Dementia has often been explored in art, whether in memoirs such as cartoonist Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? or other media, such as The Caretaker’s monumental musical work Everywhere At The End Of Time. Depictions in film have taken many forms, notably Gaspar Noé’s Vortex, which takes a visceral approach in portraying the growing deterioration of the minds and relationship of an elderly couple, and Amour, one of Michael Haneke’s finest films, and arguably his most humane and emotionally devastating.  

The quiet routine of Anne (Emmanuelle Riva, in a performance that saw her become the oldest nominee for the Best Actress Oscar) and Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant), both in their eighties, is upended when Anne has a stroke that is the first step in a precipitous decline. As her situation worsens, Anne expresses a wish to die as she progresses through partial paralysis, loss of speech and dementia. Through it all, Georges is at her side, acting as her primary caregiver, trying to manage the suffering of the beloved woman who is disappearing before his eyes.  

Amour is a typically unflinching and complex film from Haneke. It raises ethical and emotional issues that cannot be ignored, but it contains a measure of beauty too in the devotion Georges accords to Anne, giving credence to the idea expressed in the Bible’s Song of Songs that “love is as strong as death.“

Notes by Kevin Coyne.

Screening as part of our season This Mortal Coil.

Amour is available to stream on IFI@Home as part of Complicit: The Films of Michael Haneke until 1 July.