Amour fou

[Michael Kerpan]

Loosely based on the actual double suicide of the celebrated German author Heinrich von Kleist and Henriette Vogel in 1811, this beautiful period film is an austere, yet humorous take on mortality and love.

Mournful young poet Heinrich (Christian Friedel, The White Ribbon) tries in vain to convince his cousin Marie to join him in a suicide pact. Whilst coming to terms with her refusal, Heinrich meets Henriette (Birte Schnöink), the wife of a business acquaintance. The beautiful young woman is at first mystified by his perplexing offer, but she acquiesces when she is diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Austrian auteur Jessica Hausner deconstructs the traditional tropes of romance and comedy in this wry but profound chamber piece which was lauded by the critics, and is presented here on DVD and Blu-ray with with an array of contextualising extras including an interview and audio commentary with the director.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:

• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray Presentation
• Original 5.1 surround sound
• Optional English subtitles
• Audio commentary by director Jessica Hausner
• Interview with Jessica Hausner
• Deleted scenes
• Hausner’s short film Oida about the musical duo Attwenger
• Theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring two artwork options

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Finally got to see Amour fou (Jessica Hausner, 2014) (courtesy of Netflix streaming).

A really remarkable tragicomedy (very Herzog-like black comedy, it seemed to me) about Heinrich von Kleist, one of the greatest German romantic writers, and Henriette Vogel (a well-to do wife and mother and lover of music and poetry). A gorgeous looking film with very good (albeit very underplayed) performances. Impeccable (very "real" seeming) set design. Did this ever get any sort of US release? If it did, I totally did not notice it (just saw the Cannes reviews mentioned in the Cannes 2014 thread).

I will need to check out the earlier films of Ms. Hausner.

Film Movement has the home video rights. The dvd and blu have been out for a few weeks now.

[Michael Kerpan]

Film Movement has the home video rights. The dvd and blu have been out for a few weeks now.

Has anyone seen any of Hausner's earlier work?

[domino harvey]

I've seen Hotel and found it utterly disposable art house juvenilia and little ado about nothing

[Michael Kerpan]

I've seen Hotel and found it utterly disposable art house juvenilia and little ado about nothing

Not encouraging. ;-(

[knives]

I've seen Lourdes to similar success as Domino has to Hotel.

[Satori]

I think Amour fou is her best film so far, but I enjoyed Lourdes too. It has a similar downbeat mood and very subdued performance style (Sylvie Testud is especially great as the main character). Hotel is a bit rough around the edges narratively, but much of what I loved about Lourdes and Amour Fou is present in embryo, especially its slowness and its close attention to the spatial organization of the characters within the locations. All three films create very insular worlds.

[Michael Kerpan]

I think I'll check out Lourdes. (taking one step at a time).

[John Cope]

I haven't seen any of her other work yet but I think Lourdes is an absolute masterpiece, among the best movies of the century so far, with a note perfect management of crucial ambiguity.

[TMDaines]

I think Lourdes is a brilliant dark quasi comedy. Hotel is pretty awful. Lovely Rita is late '80s/early '90s Haneke lite; it's nothing special but worth a watch.

[domino harvey]

Oh wow, I've seen Lovely Rita too, completely forgot about it. Okay movie about youth before it goes eyerollingly fatalistic at the end

[knives]

This was a lot of fun if super derivative stylistically (the DVD starts with Rohmer trailers and that forced comparison hurts a lot). This is definitely a far more mature film then Lourdes with Hausner allowing the material to really speak for itself without any silly 'but is it' fakeouts. The tragicomic approach Michael talks about is definitely the best thing here with the flat de Oliviera style performances undermining what is a fairly melodramatic La Boheme type of story by making all this seem like another day in the country. The more the deadpan reacts to plain absurd dialogues the more successful the film is which makes the occasional introduction of pomp and circumstance mildly annoying, but it usually fits well enough to what does work that Hausner prevents it from seeming like a long set up to a small punchline.

[swo17]

Arrow BD announced:

Loosely based on the actual double suicide of the celebrated German author Heinrich von Kleist and Henriette Vogel in 1811, this beautiful period film is an austere, yet humorous take on mortality and love.

Mournful young poet Heinrich (Christian Friedel, The White Ribbon) tries in vain to convince his cousin Marie to join him in a suicide pact. Whilst coming to terms with her refusal, Heinrich meets Henriette (Birte Schnöink), the wife of a business acquaintance. The beautiful young woman is at first mystified by his perplexing offer, but she acquiesces when she is diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Austrian auteur Jessica Hausner deconstructs the traditional tropes of romance and comedy in this wry but profound chamber piece which was lauded by the critics, and is presented here on DVD and Blu-ray with with an array of contextualising extras including an interview and audio commentary with the director.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray Presentation
• Original 5.1 surround sound
• Optional English subtitles
• Audio commentary by director Jessica Hausner
• Interview with Jessica Hausner
• Deleted scenes
• Hausner’s short film Oida about the musical duo Attwenger
• Theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring two artwork options

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Margaret Deriaz

[Aunt Peg]

Already have the Film Movement Region Free Blu Ray. Shame Arrow didn't release this when they released the DVD as it would have been a day one buy for me. One of the very best films of 2014.

[TMDaines]

I’ll be buying as US Blu-ray is very expensive to import.