Amour and beyond

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Amour and beyond? Beyond love is death. “Amour” is lucid, touching, brutally honest and magnificent. It is the story of a loving couple and the harmonious and self-sufficient life they created for themselves. We witness their tenderness, their respect for each other, their shared interests and then illness strikes and we watch their world fall apart and their gracious life unravel. This could be your life or mine; your love, your death. Riva and Trintignant offer the most honest, extraordinary performances I have seen in what seems an eternity. There is not a false note. I was flooded with so many memories: loved ones who suffered strokes, those who died, Trintignant’s personal tragedies, Brel’s song “Les vieux”, Prévert’s “Cet amour”, Aragon’s “Aimer à perdre la raison”. I was blessed to be holding my son’s hand on one side and my husband’s on the other as I was reeling as if drunk with 5* rum… This is a film that will take up residence in your head and your heart for a long time and move you to re-examine yourself and your relationships. Go see “Amour”. You deserve it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLL1dfDvGhw

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Trintignant is a cult figure since “A man and a woman”. He’s 82 now. He has said he did not want to act in the film. He was afraid it would hurt him emotionally. In fact, at the time he was approached by the producer, he said he was contemplating suicide.The producer told him: ‘Make the film first. You can commit suicide after that.’ And now he says he doesn’t want to commit suicide anymore. 10 years ago, his daughter, actress Marie Trintignant was battered and killed by her lover and the actor has carried this grief and fragility for the last decade.

“Et l’autre reste là, le meilleur ou le pire, cela n’importe pas, celui des deux qui reste se retrouve en enfer….”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy-Y6DudhY0

CET AMOUR (Prévert)
This love
So violent
So fragile
So tender
So desperate
This love
Beautiful like the day
And bad like the weather
When the weather is bad
This love so true
This love so beautiful
So happy
So joyous
And so pathetic
Trembling with fear like a child in the dark
And so sure of itself
Like a calm man in the middle of the night
The love that freaks everyone else out
That makes them talk
That makes them turn pale
This scrutinized love
Because we were scrutinizing it
Hunted hurt impeded finished denied forgotten
Because we hunted hurt impeded finished denied forgot it
This love in its entirety
So vibrant still
And completely radiant
It’s yours
It’s mine
That which had been
This thing always new
And that hasn’t changed
As real as a plant
As shaky as a bird
As hot as lively as summer
We can both of us
Leave and come back
We can forget
And then go back to sleep
We reawaken suffer grow old
We fall asleep again
Dreaming of death
We awake smiling and laughing
And grow young again
Our love remains there
Stubborn as a mule
Lively as desire
Cruel as memory
Stupid as regret
Tender as remembrance
Cold as marble
Beautiful as the day
Fragile as a child
It watches us as it smiles
And it speaks to us without saying anything
And me I listen to it and shake
And I scream
I scream for you
I scream for me
I beg you
For you for me and for everyone in love
And who love each other
Yes I scream at it
For you for me for all the others
That I don’t know
Stay there
There where you are
There where you’ve been
Stay there
Don’t move an inch
Don’t go anywhere
We who are loved
We forgot you
Don’t you forget us
We’ve had only you on this earth
Don’t let us become cold
Always more distant
And it doesn’t matter where
Give us a sign of life
Much later in the corner of the wood
In the forest of memory
Appear suddenly
Give us your hand
And save us.

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