Haneke's camera is scrupulously avoidant of anything remotely approaching exploitation or cruelty, but it doesn't flinch for a moment from the harsh physical and emotional realities of the dreadful situation, its confusion and
loss and humiliation; that kind of unremitting honesty, however — that kind of acknowledgment of the painful, irremediable fact of death — makes for the most stirring, principled, and
meaningful illustration possible of the truest
meaning of love, the kind that goes much deeper and wider, and endures longer, than romance or joy or even togetherness.