MIFF NOTES: Amour Fou (2014, Dir. Jessica Hausner)

Those Germans really know how to do romantic comedy. "I love you, I want you to kill yourself with me." It really is the height of Nihilistic devotion. Sorry to throw a misnomer at you so early in the piece but Jessica Hausner's Amour Fou cries out for it, languidly.

Hausner revels in the irony of the poetic martyrdom of her film, taking delight both in its expressive gender politics (the film is none too kind on poor Heinrich (Christian Friedel), who is caught in his own personal poetic consumption) and in the ridiculousness flaccidness of German Romanticism (again, see Heinrich's sink hole of personal worth).

If Amour Fou sounds like it is all about the man, it is, but only to accommodate its amusingly persistent eye-rolling. There's a knowing resignation to the acquiescence of Henriette (Birte Schnoeink), the object of Heinrich's self-aggrandising affections, and an icy feminist wit to her mother's crisp asides.

The beauty of Amour Fou is that it manages to link this stilted past to contemporary gender relations so eloquently. The film's television flatness quickly dismisses period drama's distancing lushness and the cast's relatable reactions freshen the genre's stuffiness and ups the laughs.

Black comedy at its most pastel.

★★★★

Trailer (German):

Disclaimer: Due to excessive work and excessive film going, MIFF posts are going to be pretty sketchy this year. I'll come back to some of the better ones and write them up proper-like if the mood takes.