Oscar Watch: "Amour"

"Amour"
Directed by Michael Haneke
Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Foreign Language Film

Amour is a film about love, and life, and the end of life's journey. It follows two main characters, Georges and Anne, through the last parts of their lives together. Anne gets a stroke, and Georges becomes her caretaker, and the new relationship between them takes their toll, until Georges is forced to make a painful decision.

The film was superbly made. Time was taken showing the interaction between the two, the mundane activites of life, such as looking through an album, eating food, washing dishes. The small things that life becomes in the end. That's what they shared. And the way he cared for her after her illness, with such love. And finally, the decision he made at the end of her life, to spare her suffering, or his, or maybe both.

The film is a bit long, and feels somewhat strained at times, but I think that helps us understand the pain and suffering he's going through. And her acting is stellar, showing the humiliation she's feeling, and how she doesn't want to be a burden to her loving husband.

Overall, a very well-made, and very saddening film. I think it's a lock for best foreign film, but aside from that, probably not much, as Oscar may go for a more publicized film like Lincoln.