Amour (Austria 2012)  – An Unredeemed Future

The film focus on the lives of an elderly French couple, Anne and Georges, who are retired music teachers. They have a daughter who lives abroad. One day Anne suffers a stroke which paralyses one side of her body and Georges undertakes to look after her. The film is based on an identical situation that happened in Haneke’s family. What interested him the most was exploring the question: “How do you manage with the suffering of someone you love?”

Questions for reflection about the film:
– What happens to Georges at the end of the film?
– What is the significance of the pigeon in the film?
– The film in its searing lack of sentimentality brings up an interesting question about love. Is it possible to confuse love and devotion?

– Can we see the film as an exploration of the power and the limits, ultimately, of devotion?

Questions for Prayer and Reflection:
– What in the film touched us the most, and why? How do we explain that to ourselves or others?
– The film depicts an approach to the diminishment and end of life from a certain perspective. How does that perspective mesh with, or is different from, yours ?
– How does you understanding of your redeemed future facilitate your movement to the end of your own life and the lives of those you love and who love you too?
– Can we chart our own movement from “philia” to “agape”?
– What signs do we have that we have the humility to be creative without being selfish, or aggressive, or apathetic?
– Do we live our interconnectedness to others as an invitation or as a struggle for control?

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This reflection is taken from www.fgitd.ca – a website which was developed to deal with current films and with further insights into the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. 

Finding God In the Dark: Taking the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius to the Movies (Novalis) by Canadian Jesuits, John Pungente and Monty Williams, answered a need for those looking to have access to their spiritual life but who did not have access to spiritual direction.  The web site  – www.fgitd.ca – continues this work. Please go to the web site for further material on the theme of the reflection.

The 2013 series –  Redeeming the Time – available on the web-site  www.fgitd.ca  allows users to explore the ways in which God uses our responses to our past, how we live today, and how we anticipate what is coming, to develop a deeper spiritual intimacy with God.   Earlier series – beginning in 2005 – are archived on the site. Check it out . . it could change your life.