Comments on: Sickness unto death

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 07:48:04 +0000

“Why don’t we refer to it as Love?”

So people who want to see it can find if it’s playing where they live?

By: ovaut

ovaut — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 00:51:52 +0000

Why don't we refer to it as Love? It wasn't called Love in France. A film called Amour in English is very different from a film called Amour in French.

By: bert

bert — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:57:31 +0000

I agree with you, I didn’t like Funny Games. Haneke does provoke and confront. But Funny Games felt like being cornered and hectored. The target in that movie was movie audiences, so he got you coming and going.
Here, what’s being confronted is our attitude to death. Our habit of avoidance, of sentimentality. The Barbarian Invasions wasn’t a bad movie, but it was gloopy. None of that for Haneke. “Nothing more terrible, nothing more true.”

Looking at the title of Chris’ OP, it strikes me that “unto death” translates roughly as “à mort”. The movie is about love as well as death, and in the couple’s relationship there isn’t a false note struck. But with Haneke you get a bigger agenda, and a grim pun.

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:44:23 +0000

“Funny Games” traumatised me thoroughly, so I’m wary of Haneke. Your review implies this film has more compassion and less casual cruelty.

By: gordon

gordon — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 23:19:39 +0000

Is it as good as The Barbarian Invasions?

By: Maria

Maria — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:21:29 +0000

Thanks, Chris. Both for the recommendation and preparation.

It’s striking that in the trailer everyone is asking ‘what’s going on?, except for Riva’s character.

By: Jeffrey Davis

Jeffrey Davis — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 20:38:33 +0000

Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
To set a crown upon your lifetime’s effort.
First, the cold friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit
As body and soul begin to fall asunder.

– T.S. Elliot, “Little Gidding”

It could be worse. We could be screaming in pain.

By: trane

trane — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 20:18:58 +0000

Thank you for the recommendation.

On the topic of upsetting films, I cannot recommend the following enough:
The Act of Killing

http://truth-out.org/speakout/item/12891-the-act-of-killing-a-film-by-josh-oppenheimer-christine-cynn-and-anonymous

Best regards,
trane

By: bert

bert — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 18:55:35 +0000

I saw it at the weekend. Absolutely terrific.
Hidden, The White Ribbon and now this. If there’s a better director in Europe I don’t know who it is. Chris is right, by the way, to point out that it is no fun at all. But that oughtn’t put anyone off.

I suspect there may be cultural reasons, entirely separate from demographics, that also explain why Japanese filmmakers make films about old age and are able to find an audience for them. The social position of the elderly in Japan is rather different from that in California, say. In the last Hollywood effort I saw where someone died at length over the course of the movie, the diee was played by Julia Roberts, and the movie was called ‘Dying Young’.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 18:07:11 +0000

bob: if I had written a comprehensive review, I’d also have praised Trintignant. But that wasn’t what I was doing.

By: bob mcmanus

bob mcmanus — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 17:57:52 +0000

Slant's Calum Marsh gives a contrasting review. This is Michael Haneke, after all, and people should be warned. I will watch it someday. (And what is Trintignant, furniture? He was nominated beside Haneke and Riva, and you might have given him a footnote.) And I would just like to mention that because of Japan's demographics and remarkable longevity including of people in the business (which means these kind of movies get produced), there are lots of very good Japanese movies dealing with aging and Alzheimer's. Shindo Kaneto, who died at 99 after writing and directing a 2012 movie, has done at least two I thought were excellent, A Last Note, which almost chronicles his wife's sudden liver cancer and has Sugimura's last role at 88, and Ikitai. Kawase Naomi's Mogari no Mori. Ken Watanabe in Memories of Tomorrow. Many others.