'Amour'

You're old, sick and bedridden. You've just suffered a stroke and lost most of your motor skills. Who will tend to your basic needs, brush your hair and see to it that you hold on to at least a semblance of personal dignity? Increasingly in the modern world, the answer to that is a professional caregiver. But in many instances family members will give themselves to the grueling and heartbreaking task of caring for the elderly, and they don't have professional interest or compensation to balance the scale.

What's the motivation if not love, and "Amour" plumbs the depths of these mysteries of the heart in a way that the conventional cinema love story, for all its emphasis on attaining the perfect relationship, can hardly hope to achieve.

Filmmaker Michael Haneke ("The Piano Teacher") is a three-time winner of the Cannes Palme d'Or (most recently for "Amour") and walked out of last week's Academy Awards with the best foreign film Oscar, one of five for which "Amour" was nominated.