By Jim Piper
AMOUR
France/Germany/Austria • 2012 • Dir: Michael Haneke
Georges and Anne are in their eighties and share great love. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Then Anne has an attack, which leaves her without voice and nearly immobile. Georges now faces momentous decisions.
Canada/UK • 2006 • Dir: Sarah Polley
A man coping with the institutionalization of his wife because of Alzheimer’s faces an epiphany when she transfers her affections to another man, a wheelchair-bound mute at the nursing home.
ABOUT SCHMIDT
USA • 2002 • Dir: Alexander Payne
Who would have thought that a lonely, retired insurance company executive, often given to bitterness, could be moved to tears by stick figures drawn by an illiterate African boy?
THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL
USA • 1985 • Dir: Peter Masterson
Carrie is living the twilight of her life trapped in an apartment in 1940s Houston, with a controlling daughter-in-law and a hen-pecked son. Her fondest wish – just once before she dies – is to revisit Bountiful, the small Texas town of her youth that she still refers to as “home.” But there are problems, large and small, with the fulfillment of her wish.
Jim Piper is a Filmworks board member, a filmmaker, and a retired film studies instructor.