Not that sensitive. I hope. Please, not that sensitive.
But I can be brought to tears pretty easily for a human being of the male persuasion. Even now, thinking about Georgia-Peach invariably makes me cry. I've loved every dog I've had in my life, but never have I loved an animal the way I loved her.
It doesn't take something that...real...to make my eyes leak, either. Books will make me cry. Stephen King, of all people, has provoked more tears in me than any other author (if you don't cry reading 11/22/63, you are dead and do not know it, and that's to say nothing of The Green Mile, which had me sucking back salty snot-blubber cocktails like I'd fallen off the tear-wagon and was making up for lost time).
Movies can make me bawl. I remember seeing MASK when I was 14 or so...when that movie ended, I went to my room, closed the door, collapsed on my bed, and cried so hard I ran out of tears. The monstrous unfairness at the close of that film took my heart, wrung it out, and proceeded to stomp on it for a while.
But tears are cathartic, right? They cleanse...that's why they sting so much, the best cleaners are abrasive the same way that any medicine worth taking will taste terrible. And so every once in a while, without even really meaning to, I will sit down and watch a tear-jerker.
I haven't seen anywhere near all of them, not even all the most famous ones. I steer clear of anything I know to depict animal suffering, for instance: I can't take that. I know that in and of itself sounds inhuman, oh, look at Ken, he cares more about a dog dying in a gutter than he does about men, women and babies dying every day. Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows how untrue that is: pain in any form, from anyone, hurts me. But depicting human suffering has a purpose...I mean, everyone really should see Schindler's List, for example. It's a very hard film to watch, but it should be watched...lest we forget. A dog dying in a gutter? That's suffering without meaning. There's no lesson to be drawn from it.
But I have seen a few of the ten-handkerchief movies, and I will continue to see them, especially the ones that come with lessons I need to either learn or be reminded of. Big Fish caused me to re-evaluate a broken parental relationship. Philadelphia was was one of the things that cured my homophobia (which isn't to say meeting nice, normal people who happened to be gay didn't help a lot more in that regard). And then there's the movie I saw recently...a movie that, although totally different from Schindler's List, is every bit as mandatory as far as I'm concerned.
I had to do a 10-15 minute presentation on a French film this term. I wanted to make it worth my while, so I Googled "best recent French films" and did a quick mental survey of the responses. Amour (2012) seemed to be on an awful lot of lists. Well, now. From the title alone I knew it had something to do with love, so there's a check mark. I read a synopsis, noting the movie concerns itself with an aging musicologist and his music teacher wife (check, check) and then saw it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (as well as the female lead being nominated for Best Actress, which I imagine is exceptionally rare in a foreign language film).
I delved into the reviews, which were uniformly excellent. Every single one of them noted that this was a tear-jerker of the first order; a couple of them saying things like "the ultimate horror film" and "a horror film for the ages. Interestinger and interestinger. One review said this was not only a phenomenal movie, but the sort of of movie that everybody should see. What tipped me over into buying it with some of my Christmas iTunes movie was that the daughter character was named Eva and the mother was named Anne. Had to be a sign: that's my wife and mother-in-law.
So I watched it.
So I watched it.
Wow.
Emmanuelle Riva gives a transcendent performance as Anne, and the rest of the actors in this relationship drama are not far behind. You honest-to-God forget you are watching an movie and that these are people playing roles. And the director, Michael Haneke, doesn't flinch one iota. The film is a series of long shots (averaging almost thirty seconds apiece!), forcing the viewer to pay attention. Like many European movies, there is lots of silence and lots said in the silences.
So basically what happens in this movie: After some scenes establishing Anne and Georges' long, loving relationship, we see Anne freeze at the breakfast table. Her husband doesn't notice at first. When he does, he tries various things to get her attention, to no avail. He wets a dishcloth and dabs at her forehead...nothing. Flustered, he goes to the bedroom to get dressed and go for help, leaving the tap running. We hear the tap turned off. He goes back out to the kitchen and Anne is puttering away as if nothing had happened.
Georges' worry manifests as upset. He thinks his wife is playing a joke on him. She convinces him that she has no recollection whatsoever of what happened, and she allows herself, despite a fear of hospitals and doctors, to go to one and see the other. An operation is performed. It fails.
And from then on we see Anne slowly, ever so slowly, sink. Emanuelle Riva's performance, I repeat, is one for the ages, no pun intended. Her husband, played almost as well by Jean-Louis Trintignant, takes care of her for as long as he can, as well as he can, shielding her decline from the outside world. "Some things don't deserve to be seen", he says to his daughter, whom he tries to bar from viewing the shell that once was her mother and his wife.
He hires nurses. One of them abuses her. He fires her, but then when Anne refuses to drink some water one morning, he slaps her. At this point she can only communicate with her eyes, and...dear God, your heart.
When the end comes -- which I will not spoil -- let's just say it will stay with you for a long, long time. The scariest thing about this movie is that this is what's waiting for most of us. At some point we will either be the caregiver or the cared for. The petty indignities--the diapers, the feedings, the breakdown in communication--that's just the beginning of the end. The end is ghastly, unbearable.
Please see this movie. I can't promise you it will be easy: in fact I can assure you it will be extremely difficult. But as much as it hurts, you will not regret it one bit.
So basically what happens in this movie: After some scenes establishing Anne and Georges' long, loving relationship, we see Anne freeze at the breakfast table. Her husband doesn't notice at first. When he does, he tries various things to get her attention, to no avail. He wets a dishcloth and dabs at her forehead...nothing. Flustered, he goes to the bedroom to get dressed and go for help, leaving the tap running. We hear the tap turned off. He goes back out to the kitchen and Anne is puttering away as if nothing had happened.
Georges' worry manifests as upset. He thinks his wife is playing a joke on him. She convinces him that she has no recollection whatsoever of what happened, and she allows herself, despite a fear of hospitals and doctors, to go to one and see the other. An operation is performed. It fails.
And from then on we see Anne slowly, ever so slowly, sink. Emanuelle Riva's performance, I repeat, is one for the ages, no pun intended. Her husband, played almost as well by Jean-Louis Trintignant, takes care of her for as long as he can, as well as he can, shielding her decline from the outside world. "Some things don't deserve to be seen", he says to his daughter, whom he tries to bar from viewing the shell that once was her mother and his wife.
He hires nurses. One of them abuses her. He fires her, but then when Anne refuses to drink some water one morning, he slaps her. At this point she can only communicate with her eyes, and...dear God, your heart.
When the end comes -- which I will not spoil -- let's just say it will stay with you for a long, long time. The scariest thing about this movie is that this is what's waiting for most of us. At some point we will either be the caregiver or the cared for. The petty indignities--the diapers, the feedings, the breakdown in communication--that's just the beginning of the end. The end is ghastly, unbearable.
Please see this movie. I can't promise you it will be easy: in fact I can assure you it will be extremely difficult. But as much as it hurts, you will not regret it one bit.
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