After putting his Internet-centered film on hold to focus on the elderly drama These Two, Michael Haneke and those involved in the project have been relatively quiet on what it’s really about. All we’ve heard about the story is that concerns the “humiliation of the physical breakdown in the elderly” (I will never get tired of reading that), with not much else in the way of plot. Thankfully, IonCinema (via ThePlaylist) has picked up a synopsis, which can be read below.

Plot: Centers on cultured octogenarians Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), who are retired music teachers. Their daughter (Isabelle Huppert), also a musician, lives abroad with her family. One day, Anne suffers a minor stroke. When she leaves the hospital and returns home, she is paralysed down one side. The love that binds this old couple will really be put to the test.

From the screenwriters of Tangled.

Sure, the plot doesn’t sound like something you would take your family to see unless they were into depressing foreign films, but as a film nerd I find it hard to believe somebody could not be excited for anything that the man is doing next. Even when his approach doesn’t work (Funny Games), he’s still able to manipulate the audience’s feelings pretty well, and when he’s working to his fullest potential (Cache), it’s cinema more exciting than any of Bay’s Transformers or Scott’s Scary Train. And we’ll be seeing it sooner rather than later, as the production is said to begin in February with a 40 day shoot, essentially guaranteeing it’s released by the end of next year. Holy Haneke, I’m excited*!

What do you think of this plot description? Are you excited for These Two?

*sorry