“I’m no good at life,” laments the poet Heinrich von Kleist (Christian Friedel) in this wry Austrian-directed dramedy, “but I don’t want to die alone.” Writer/director Jessica Hausner (“Lourdes”) evokes Wes Anderson in the meticulous art direction and cinematography of “Amour Fou,” which takes place largely in the drawing rooms of upper-class Berlin homes in the early 1800s. Based on a true story, it follows the proto-Goth Kleist’s campaign to find a woman willing to enter a suicide pact with him — eventually leading him to Henriette Vogel (Birte Schnoink), a married woman who’s just been informed she has a fatal tumor.
Largely devoid of soundtrack, Hausner’s film feels authentically quiet and slower-paced for the time period, though its most enjoyable detail is the frequent presence of household dogs — a Weimaraner here, a French bulldog there — sitting placidly beside their genteel owners. The very German lack of emotion is so acute it can be hard to tell when Hausner’s playing for laughs, but Friedel is hilariously — if morbidly — tedious as the tortured writer whose pickup line is, “Would you care to die with me?”