Retired music teachers Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) live in quiet domesticity in their Paris flat. One day, Anne suffers a stroke that leaves her partially paralysed. Georges, devoted and stoic, becomes her primary caregiver. As Anne’s health deteriorates after a second stroke, her physical and mental decline deepens, leading to moments of pain, frustration, and despair. For a filmmaker who’s used shock tactics in the past, what’s startling here is the simplicity of Haneke’s approach, tracing Trintignant’s brave response to his wife’s illness by confronting the unsparing daily realities of being a caregiver. The director won his second Palme D’or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival for this profoundly moving portrait of love, aging, and mortality.

Notes by David O’Mahony.

Screening as part of Complicit: The Films of Michael Haneke.