Amour Fou is a masterpiece that furthers the ability of film to tell a story and develop a world through camera, editing, scenography and costumes. Jessica Haussner's film presents a past world so that we not only see it, but also understands how the past people see themselves, as it's expressed in the spatial world they've build. It's visually stunning film, that still maintains it's own subtle sense of humor. And it's a landmark in filmic (feminist) critique of ideology, for those who care about stuff like that.
The plot in Amour Fou is really simple, and as it's based on a real story it should be allowed to say where the plot goes: On november 21st 1811 the poet Heinrich von Kleist and housewife Henriette Vogel killed themselves together. Haussner's film depicts the process from their first meeting to they commit suicide together, a process where Henriette feels driven along like a marionette doll. But what is controlling her? The determined von Kleist, who has asked other women before Vogel if they'll die with him? Or is it something deeper and darker in the culture as such? In Haussner's earlier film, Lourdes, the director depicted the catholic miracle faith in Lourdes and what it did to a young woman in a wheelchair. But the camera constantly managed to diminish the magic of the many golden statues, megachurches and souvenir shops in the very touristy area. But while the latest film examined a real city, the project this time is to examine a fully remade culture. This is done through an exquisite scenography, where every set seems symmetrical as in a film by Haussner's countryman Ulrich Seidl or perhaps even Wes Anderson. But where Anderson would have filmed the sets head on, to further underline the symmetry, Haussner instead constantly places the camera slightly off kilter, or lets her actors stand in different planes in the picture. The effect is as if seeing a world be created to be perfect and logical, but that life has left things just slightly askew. A chair has been moved a little. People don't behave exactly as they should. Something is wrong with this world, it's out of balance.
The world of the nobility is faltering and the world of the bourgoisie is on the rise. The film depicts this development in a humurous fashion, through Henriettes husband, working on reforms in Prussia, which will set the peasants free and create taxes for everyone to pay - including the nobels. The reform would lead to the nobles losing power over their peasants, but also a big amount of power to a new bourgois bureaucracy, that would count and control the people in unprecedented ways in order to effectively tax them. It's a stormy time that the film depcits, but it does it through arguments over taxation. But neither the ideology of the nobility nor that of the bourgoisie has any room for women, who like Henriette Vogel live in their own, meticulously created mansions. This is where something is wrong. It is as if this crack in the ideology of ancient liberalism, which preaches freedom for all, but does nothing for women, it's as if this crack infests the whole film, the camera, the sets, the choreography of the persons in the palaces. In this ideological quagmire, Henriette is caught by the romantic notions of death in a romantic, after she herself has been diagnosed with an incurable sickness, and even if she doesn't have any particular wish of dying, she is now controlled by a romantic ideology as she before was controlled by a bourgois and conservative one. It's a dark tale, but on the other hand the only proper response seems to be nervous laugher. Laugher of the absurdly staged happenings in the many mansions, or the confused steps the death obsessed couple take towards the end.
I've seen Amour Fou three times, and it gets better and better for each time I see it. New details emerge, such as how the film depicts the status of the sexes perfectly from the start, with first a shot of Henriette hidden by large yellow flowers, and then a shot of Mr Vogel, sitting on his chair right in the middle of a wall, getting his shoes changed by the servant girl. And as Henriette walks towards death, her bouquets gets less and less flowers in them, more naked sticks. Or like how one of the central lines in the film is undermined by a dog in the room: 'Will you die with me?' *WOOF* '...no...' Or how the Vogel's home is furnished so that there is a way through all the rooms leading to the mans office, from which he can sit in a green dressing gown, matching the green carpets, in control of everything, especially the finances. There's such a control over details in this film, and the humor is so subdued, that it can be seen again and again. On the last watch, the whole film seemed to consist of small sketches, where the punchline seems to be Mr Vogel or his friend and colleague Mr Müller's frightens faces as Kleist commits unspeakable faux pas's, such as saying 'Bravo' or mentioning death. It's a beautiful and intelligent film, and in it's own way incredibly funny. As said: A Masterpiece. Which I look forward to seeing a fourth time.
