REVIEW: Michael Haneke's Amour A Beautifully Calculated Demise

Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke has a distinctively aggressive relationship with his audience that ranges from the provocation of Caché and The Piano Teacher to the outright antagonism of Funny Games and Benny's Video. Amour, his latest work and the winner of the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, might be considered Haneke's version of a love story, and its grimness is of a much quieter but no less impactful sort. It is, more than any of Haneke's previous work, infused with compassion, but of a sort that cuts like a knife. For all that it is, as promised, about love, it's also a subtly punishing affair that grinds you into the ground as you watch an elderly couple deal with one member's slow deterioration of health and sanity.
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