Amour Fou

Jessica Hausner’s long-awaited follow-up to Lourdes is a devilish anti-Rom-Com in which a German poet seeks mates for a suicide pact.

Jessica Hausner’s long-awaited follow-up to Lourdes is a mischievous satire on the conceits of Romantic-era fiction. Following the final days in the life of 19th-century German poet Heinrich von Kleist (The Marquise of O), it charts his attempts to find a partner for a suicide pact only to meet with despairing disappointments.

Crackling with deliciously absurd dialogue and framed in painterly precise compositions, Amour Fou finds Hausner channelling the studied style Eric Rohmer, and winning much acclaim when the film debuted at Cannes Film Festival 2014.