Year 2012: Amour

For three consecutive years my favorite films share the same ethos, that there is freedom in death and that true love begins with death. Amour, a film by Austrian auteur Michael Haneke is about an octogenarian couple faced with a grave circumstance after Anne, the wife, was stricken with stroke. Although it downplayed the subject of euthanasia, we are instead challenged here how deep and far true love can go. Can you give unselfish service to your loved one's by granting them merciful death if they were to suffer from an intolerable illness? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to secure that love through sickness and in health till death do you part even if you have to disregard your own spiritual credo and morality? If same sex marriage is getting a fair treatment from several countries, euthanasia is still a sensitive issue all over the world that is pretty much an elephant in the room - a taboo - ignored and avoided by everyone, by the church and the government. In my opinion, as long as the act itself is considered a crime it would never get acknowledge as legal, but at least with this film we see a point of view that mirrors centrally on human emotions rather on the politics and debates that the subject usually stirs upon. Amour, just like most of Hanake's films does not offer clear cut explanations and stretched out dialogues, the logic behind the characters actions depends largely on the viewers perception and the open-ended conclusion for their own discretion.