"A Life in Color": Cheers to the crazy life

Dieser Beitrag ist auch verfügbar auf: Deutsch

At the center of this documentary is Eleanor Ambos: 92 years old, interior designer – and a fun-loving bundle of energy who has never allowed herself to be pigeonholed. The film tells the story of a colorful life, of individuality and great freedom – and touches a nerve that goes far beyond individual biographies: How do we want to grow old? What becomes possible when expectations, taboos and conventions lose their power?

A Life in Color will be released in Austrian cinemas in March – and is anything but a typical film about ageing. We watched it and were surprised at how much joie de vivre, friction, but also a subtle approach to the many nuances of ageing it contains. We interviewed director Axel Stasny: He knew Eleanor Ambos years before the encounter became a movie – and he tells us how closeness, trust and observation turned into a tribute to freedom.

“To be nuts and not to feel guilty about it”

A Life in Color is one of those films after which you don’t just get up and leave the cinema. You stay seated for a moment because something resonates: This quiet permission to really live your own life – not just someday, now. And in a way that feels right. “To be nuts and not to feel guilty about it” – this is exactly the energy the movie releases.

At the center is Eleanor Ambos: 92 years old, dazzling and fun-loving, headstrong – and in love. A personality and keen analyst who is not easily forgotten. Perhaps because her life shows so clearly what is possible when you invest your energy not in ‘fitting in’, but in what really interests you.

At the young age of 18, she came to the USA from Germany after the Second World War and built a life for herself in New York: With willpower and an eye for spaces, she developed an interior design business that became a successful multi-million company. She furnished the homes of diplomats, renovated run-down properties and maintained entire warehouses full of antique furniture until her death. A working life that sounds less like a career ladder than a consistently lived passion.

Axel Stasny remembers: “I met Eleanor when I was shooting my first documentary ‘Leaving the Nest’ in New York. She hated being seen as an entrepreneur – she radically just did what gave her pleasure.” According to Stasny, she would never have made decisions purely out of economic interest.

And then, despite her great success, there is this contrast that is so touching: While her professional universe was big, colorful and full of unusual things – and she never had any money worries – her own home seems surprisingly plain. She wore clothes until they were really no longer usable. Instead of taking a cab, she preferred to travel sparingly on the New York subway. She didn’t have a wallet; she put her money and credit cards in a simple envelope. Stasny: “She didn’t attach any importance to representation, to material things. She wanted to develop projects and have fun in her life.” Retirement didn’t seem to be a goal for her, rather a foreign word. Work was an enrichment for her – a space in which she could remain curious, create and live her own rhythm.

Living life on your own terms

Eleanor lived with an energy and presence that was infectious. Stasny: “Cognitively, she was incredibly present, often more present than many others. And she remained active right to the end. You can feel that very clearly in the film: Eleanor was always fit, at any time of day.” At the same time, life forced her to reach a limit at some point. When energy drops in people who define themselves so much by strength, movement and self-determination, it feels like a break. What’s more, Eleanor was increasingly losing her sight due to macular degeneration. Her most important tool – her sight – had become fragile. The film shows this vulnerability not as a fall, but as a turning point: A woman who is used to repairing and beautifying has to accept that there are structures that even she cannot restore.

And yet she takes the liberty of doing things that many people her age would have given up long ago – or that are considered socially taboo. Eleanor falls in love with a man 70 years her junior. This means that her personal story – even at over 90 – remains a source of friction: Who is still allowed to love in old age, how openly – and on what terms?

“Eleanor savored the fact that she did it anyway. At the same time, of course, it was difficult for her because she was afraid: How will people talk about her?” recalls Stasny. “But her personality was so strong that she did what she wanted to do anyway. That was an important part of her: She wanted people to talk openly about her fears and taboos so that they would lose their impact. It was important to her that you can also defend yourself against them – against society’s intentions and expectations.”

Moving the boundaries through morals and expectations

For Axel Stasny, two messages are at the heart of his film. The first is directed against the double standards with which women in particular are judged: “I believe that morals and expectations of a woman are extremely high. If a man has a girlfriend who is 70 years younger, it’s normal. Conversely, it is still a taboo: A woman with a much younger man.” For him, this standard does not end in his private life, but continues in his professional life: “A woman has to show much more strength in order to be successful. I see this in all aspects, including in the film sector. Female cinematographers and directors face huge hurdles to enter the market.”

The second message concerns our approach to age in general. Stasny criticizes a culture that links value almost exclusively to performance and youth: “We live in a meritocracy where you have to look young and athletic to be accepted. This is toxic behavior – and it leads to older people being excluded: In everyday life, but also in the movies.” As soon as people reach a certain age, they become `invisible’ or `annoying’, as if they have lost their social value. “That is a very short-sighted attitude, because we are all getting older and older. I would like to initiate a discussion so that we treat older people differently and also ourselves.”

Why we recommend this movie to you

For us, A Life in Color is so interesting because the film poses a question that is becoming increasingly urgent in an ageing Europe: How do we want to grow old – and who decides that? And what does this mean for us younger people, for us relatives, who support, think, carry – and sometimes also fight?

Eleanor Ambos is the right person to initiate this discussion. Because she is not a character who ages gracefully. She dances, flirts, keeps moving, wears color, thinks big – and she takes what she still wants from life. The film shows this without kitsch or voyeurism. It looks, but does not expose. It makes visible what often remains invisible: Desires, ambivalences, needs, stubbornness. This is precisely where his strength lies: Eleanor is allowed to be complicated – full of zest for life, plans and ideas. At the same time vulnerable, sometimes lonely and with scars that don’t simply disappear. The film shows the nuances of an older personality that all too often ends up in a single pigeonhole in our society: “65+”.

Eleanor is different because she makes her own decisions. Not perfect, not always comfortable – but radically alive and analytically merciless. And this is precisely where the liberating power of this movie lies: It makes you want to live your own life instead of managing it.

Director Axel Stasny approaches Eleanor with palpable affection and respect. He tells the story of ageing in a multi-layered way and without the usual abbreviations. You can sense the trust between the camera and the protagonist – and you realize that he is concerned with something fundamental: Adjusting the images of old age. Not as the end of the line, not as desexualization, not as harmlessly quirky, but as a phase of life in which love, desire, longing and self-assertion are just as real as in any other.

We are telling this story in the past because Eleanor Ambos has since died. But the movie captures something about her that remains: An admirable attitude, characterized by strength and a love of life. And perhaps that is its greatest gift – that it encourages us not to save energy until it suits us, but to invest it in the life we really want to live now.

You can watch the film in the presence of director Axel Stasny:

March 4, 2026: Votivkino Vienna, 7.30 pm

March 5, 2026: Moviemento Linz, 6 pm

March 8, 2026, Cinema Paradiso St. Pölten, 11:30 a.m.

March 8, 2026, Leokino Innsbruck, 7:30 p.m.

March 10, 2026, Freistadt Cinema, 8 p.m.

March 12, 2026, KIZ Royal Graz, 6:30 p.m.

March 14, 2026, Programmkino Wels, 8 pm

March 17, 2026, Das Kino Salzburg, 6 p.m.

The film will also be shown in the following cinemas:

Breitenseer-Lichtspiele Vienna, Stadtkino Grein, Volkskino Klagenfurt, Kino im Turm Radstadt

Details & Crew