Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

ehk2 I haven't laughed so hard for a long time.that is the greatest mockery, pure parody I have come across for a long time (watch it together with the Lobster-love as another convention-, even funnier than that). that romantic poet was such a blockhead, probably as much as everyone and every institution around him. that is laughter, looking backwards from nowadays.on a more serious base, that is proper history of manners a la Norbert Elias. the issue here is historical sociology and psychology and class dynamics; not the biographical-individual pain of creation or romantic aesthetics.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) Do not be confused by the title of this 90-minute movie: "Amour fou" is not a French movie, but an Austrian film from last year written and directed by Jessica Hausner. The cast includes some names that should be known to German/Austrian audiences. The main character is played by Christian Friedel ("Das weiße Band"), the male co-lead is portrayed by Stepphan Grossman, also a familiar face, even if I did not remember the name. Katharine Schüttler and Sandra Hüller, 2 of Germany's most respected younger actresses right now, play supporting characters. The female lead is played by Birte Schnoeink, who is a newcomer to playing main characters, but she did a good job here, reminded me of Carey Mulligan.The film is about a man who is unhappy with his life at the early 19th century and plans to commit suicide. However, he does not want to go alone, but convince a woman to join him not in life, but in death. After his preferred choice refuses, he finds a "victim" in another young woman. What is maybe the most interesting aspect of this film is how you perceive the main character. Yes he convinces a woman into death, but there are mitigating factors, such as him obviously suffering from depression and also that he would never force anybody to do it. It's personal perception how you like or dislike him I guess. In any case, Friedel was pretty good in here and he carried this movie nicely with Schnoeink. Finally, a word on the visual side: The costumes and set decorations are all pretty convincing and the only reason I won't give this film a higher rating is that period pieces are not exactly my favorite genre. Only weakness for me was near the end that the pistol did not go off when he tried to shoot himself. This movie really did not need a cheap thrill of that kind. Still, all in all, it was a pretty good watch and I recommend it.

Sindre Kaspersen Austrian screenwriter and director Jessica Hausner's fourth feature film which she wrote, is inspired by an article she came across regarding the life of a renowned German 18th and 19th century poet named Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811). It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 67th Cannes International Film Festival in 2014, was shot on locations in Germany and Luxembourg and is an Austria-Germany-Luxembourg co-production which was produced by producers Martin Gschlacht, Antonin Svoboda, Bruno Wagner, Bady Minck, Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu and Philippe Bober. It tells the story about a German pianist in her early thirties named Henriette Vogel who lives in Berlin, Germany during the Kingdom of Prussia (1525-1947) with her husband named Friedrich, their daughter named Páuline and live-in maid, who wouldn't dare to demand freedom as she considers herself as the property of her spouse, and who one day is presented with a rather peculiar proposition from a German lyricist in his early thirties who stopped loving his fiancée when she wouldn't comply with his theoretically developed wish. Distinctly and precisely directed by Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner, this quietly paced fictional tale which is narrated by and interchangeably and simultaneously from the protagonists' viewpoints, draws a perspicaciously philosophical, retrospectively reflective and eloquently bilateral portrayal of a Protestant Christian writer, formerly imprisoned by the French military, who perpetually and eagerly as if a hypochondriac insists on gaining the compassion of Miss Vogel and his friend named Marie. While notable for its distinctly atmospheric milieu depictions, reverent cinematography by cinematographer Martin Gschlacht, production design by production designer Katharina Wöppermann and costume design by costume designer Tanja Hausner, this dialog-driven and narrative-driven story about the egotistic, ridiculous, misunderstood and ironic aspects of a four letter word, densely and non-moralistically though virtuously reconstructs real events in accordance with the vision of the filmmaker, who made her statement six years ago, rather than in accordance with biographical facts, puts fiction and documentary up against each other and situates characters in restricted roles which makes it apparent that their every attempt at freeing themselves only leads them to the realization of what a seven letter word really is.Made almost a century after the birth of the first Austrian woman to obtain a medical degree named Rosa Welt-Straus (1856-1938), forty-two-years after an Austrian-Jewish leader named Ernestine von Fürt (1877-1956) became the leader of the Union of Hebrew women for equal rights in Eretz Israel and twenty-four years before the son of a King named Christian VII (1749-1808) and a Queen named Caroline Mathilde (1751-1777) of Denmark and Norway wrote: "No one but we alone can be able to judge what is in the state and the people's true gain and best interest.", this master-act and midgame which plays on the supposed subconscious horrifying imagination of the audience, creates a rhythmically playful dance through radically and acutely staged perspectives which underlines its cinematic language, communicates by intention or not that poetry is anything but an innocent escapist game for children, youth or adults, that there exists a not self-evident though perceptible relation between mental illness and amour, places its empathy with the people who are carved into unquestioned and dictatorial conventions, depicts an exceptionally diverse study of character and contains some musical passages. This darkly and abruptly humorous fairytale and unconventional character piece which is set in Germany in the early 19th century during the Romantic era (1800-1850) after the French Revolution and where roleplaying is done in a desensitizing manner which has historic undertones and emphasizes the actors' functions as modeled actors, laws were being reinforced and a well-mannered and articulate thirty-four-year-old brother and son applies his intellect and the fanciest words of his racing vocabulary to persuade those he has set his mind on to join him in his irrational plot, is impelled and reinforced by its cogent narrative structure, subtle character development, rhythmic continuity, masterful dialog, advanced realism, the ever so gentle and self-explanatory comment by Henriette: "It is strange to have an illness that may not be one. A figment of the imagination which is as real as reality." by Marie: "…to see the pleasant side of…" and the outstandingly cinematic acting performances by German actor Christian Friedel and German actresses Birthe Schnöink and Sandra Hüller. A cinematographically picturesque narrative feature.

Narrow "Would you care to die with me?" It's a question you'd perhaps expect to hear being uttered from one of Hollywood's more overused basement sets, rather than that of a stately German home during dinner. Austrian writer/ director Jessica Hausner's sixth feature is a study of death as an act of love in the midst of a Prussian Empire on the cusp of French-inspired political and social reformation. Set between 1810 and 1811, the film follows a young romantic poet, Heimlich (Christian Friedel), as he seeks out a partner for what he believes is a perfect act of love and the solution to his melancholic woes; a shared death. After his cousin spurns his fatalistic advances, Heimlich turns his attentions to Henriette (Birte Schnoeik), the wife of a business associate and a woman diagnosed with a terminal condition. What transpires is a drawn out courtship, with an underlying will-they-won't- they murder-suicide pact theme.Far from the dashing romantic image a period poet might evoke, Friedel's Heimlich moves awkwardly through the picture as a skulking, slightly greasy weirdo. He's the Seventeenth Century love child of Max Schrek's Nosferatu and How I Met Your Mother's Ted Mosby, desperately searching for his elusive dream girl. Pursuing his prospective suitors and explaining his desire for this mutual suicide with all the cold, Germanic logic of a Kraftwerk track, "First I will shoot you and then myself". Still in Hausner's depiction of upper-middle class Prussian life, it's perhaps not inconceivable that his offer is met with more of a curious enthusiasm than it is with laughter and a one-way trip to the gallows.There's a visually cruel symmetry to the set design. The rooms at a glance are large and grand, but their interiors sparse and utilitarian. Carpets, drapes and walls are covered with maddeningly geometric, repetitive patterns and each static shot looks like the kind of uninspired Seventeenth Century painting that one might find adorning a Twentieth Century biscuit tin. The colour palate is oddly muted. The characters move in precise, robotic motions, which seem designed to minimise the energy spent. Indeed, the stately group dance in the third act seems to ironically be the least choreographed in the entire film. It's as if this world, one where the sole form of entertainment is gathering around a piano to listen to a child hammer out macabre songs, would be so repressively dull as to make the offer of a late afternoon fatality a tantalising thought. Indeed, while planning their final moments, Henriette seems to have the sheepish smile of a young woman who's been flaunting her ankles all over Berlin. That's almost all the facial emotion that we see throughout the entire ninety-six minutes.Ultimately, it's not all that easy to ascertain what Hausner's sterile slice of period drama is trying to convey. It could be that death, like social change is inevitable, so we might as well enjoy it, rather than hide from it in denial. However, it's a little hard to walk away thinking that the past would have been anything but a torturous purgatory, of which death would have been the kindest release. Perhaps mercifully, the viewers' time there is, in cinematic terms, rather brief.