Michael Haneke

Temps du Loup had a nice ending to it)

I was wondering about this movie, nobody has even mentioned it until now, I've got it queued up, its some kind of sci-fi fantasy thing, I gather?

Temps du Loup had a nice ending to it)

I was wondering about this movie, nobody has even mentioned it until now, I've got it queued up, its some kind of sci-fi fantasy thing, I gather?

I was wondering myself why wasn't this film mentioned. It's one of the most annoying (not to say worst) films I've ever seen and made me loose any interest on Haneke - I haven't seen any of his films after this one.

I'm pretty shocked/surprised at the strength of reaction that Haneke is drawing from the IHM crowd, although I guess he'd probably be happy about it.

as for Time of the Wolf, this isn't something I say much or usually believe when other people say it, but it works much better in the theater than it does on DVD or DL or whatever, because of how dark so much of the film is (literally, I mean).

the Lars von Trier dig is probably more of a compliment then anything, but who is being upset by this?

did i miss something said earlier in the thread?

Well, actually no. The paralel didn't hold any qualitative differentiations whatsoever. I feel generally upset after watching Von Trier.

i would say that, particularly in the case of The Seventh Continent and 71 Fragments, there is no question as to the outcome and therefore no sudden "surprise" self-destruct.

And I'd agree.

I feel generally upset after watching Von Trier.

interesting

i've found that, even at their darkest, Lars von Trier films are comedies on some level or another

maybe thats just me though

I don't remember falling off my chair in stitches watching The Element Of Crime at least not until I learnt that the water temperature in the scene near the end where the blokes jump off the tower was 2°C (the skinnydipping extras were local firemen, as I recall, and a few had to be hospitalised for hypothermia.. oh well I guess Lars had a little chuckle at that)

ahhh you're right

i just keep trying to mentally block his lame 80's over serious art school phase (let's call them the "von" years)

though i suppose Epidemic has some charm to it as far as it's approach is concerned (just taking the x amount of funding they were given and running with it)

i've found that, even at their darkest, Lars von Trier films are comedies on some level or another

If I stab you, will you bleed ?

My love relationship with Haneke ended abruptly and violently. Chronologically exhausting the remnants of a small dvx-collection of Haneke I have [Der Siebente Kontinent, 71 Fragmente, Das Schloss, Funny Games, Code Iconnu], I watched Funny Games [after watching Das Schloss from the same year, which I thought was startlingly beautiful piece of film-making].

And after I watched Funny Games, I kept asking myself why would someone have a need to take such a obnoxious, foul crap* over everything he did so far and the two possible answers to that question that came to my mind were: 1) Maybe that 'everything' wasn't really that good as I first thought it was and 2) He is one of those all-rational types of flawless art-school directors who are like 'Ha, I am the great genious-director, I can emulate every reality for you, ha, look at me drop my holy crap, look how it shimmers, look how it shines'. In that context I found that making of a film like Funny Games in the same year as making a kind of a film like Das Schloss is a really obvious poke in the eye. So, good for me I watched Funny Games last.

*with no further explanations due

Finally got round to watching Benny's Video last night and am now beginning to understand LG's monster post on the previous page. This is one where Haneke really gets it wrong: scriptwise, actingwise, plotwise. Caché glued me to my seat; this one lost me as soon as the boy started calmly eating that yogurt. Irony and cynicism are not the same; nor are guilt and responsibility. Cute references to other movies - the shower scene from Psycho as he washes his sheet in the bath, the head-shaving (Taxi Driver sure, but also Full Metal Jacket), maybe even Lord Of The Flies (angelic choirboys become vicious savages) - are fine, but I have to feel that the drector (if not necessarily the viewer) believes in his characters. I don't think that's the case here, and that's why the whole exercise comes across as smug and cynical.

Completely bowled over the first time I saw Time of the Wolf. On second viewing I seemed to notice Isabelle Huppert carried the film with no support whatsoever. Caché from the beginning I thought was awful. Now everyone knows where the camera watching the family should have been, including them, but it's not there, so it's that Lynchian kind of reality is what you bend it into thing. After that, if somebody tries to kill himself off to make any kind of statement whatsoever, we've been warned it's a mindfuck, haven't we?

everyone knows where the camera watching the family should have been, including them, but it's not there, so it's that Lynchian kind of reality is what you bend it into thing.

Could you translate this into plain English for me please?

Ah well, I shouldn’t have posted at all, there’s no fun in not liking this movie. Also this was a drive-by post that didn’t even get things right about when I started to dislike it. Since I couldn’t keep my trap shut, here’s a more serious try. It’s become too long though.

I thought the beginning was great, fabulous acting, I would have loved it if the family had simply continued creeping up the walls and finally autodestructing. With no explanation where the videos came from please.

I felt it was established early that the videos couldn’t really have been made except by a phantom camera. Which is straight out of Lynch (and I started having suspicions in Lynchian mode: is the guy watching his own house himself, are these inner images of the staleness of his life, etc), but used quite differently and very effectively. The only thing that started to bother me at some point was that I had the feeling I as audience was supposed to start wondering about what was happening. I don’t enjoy that at all. If the movie can’t make up its mind, I won’t be doing crossword puzzles to help it out. (Which is why I hated Lost Highway but love Mulholland Drive.)

Then the immigrant boy/guilt from the past theme came in. This shifted things even more toward a whodunnit. The only thing that might still have saved it for me, was that everything seemed so arbitrary, maybe that would be the point. So I tried to go back to not wondering how (and increasingly, if) it all hung together. But then the immigrant father’s suicide put a stop to that. This scene really annoyed me. It seemed cheap, a sort of sure-fire way of making the whole film more substantial. Of course it’s perfectly possible to find a motive (I can’t be bothered to read the internet discussion about it), the one that immediately came to mind was: if the father’s dead, the son probably can stay, so maybe history won’t repeat itself. But. What do I gain by explaining fictional incidents to myself? There has been nothing said about the plight of the immigrant. There has been nothing really about how you can somehow destroy a person’s life just because you clicked the wrong way for a second, and how it always can hit back. These things are just referenced, there’s no meat. The story had meat at the beginning, but these beginnings that depended on family psychology now lie by the roadside.

That legendary final scene which nobody saw who didn’t look for it (I was hipped to it beforehand but decidedly ungrateful since it) completely annoyed me. By that oh so cutesy touch, we now can believe, if we choose to, that the two kids cooked up the whole scheme and found a way to produce these video images (what can’t you do with a computer?). After that, what’s left of the movie? What do smart kids gain that have pieced all the pieces together?

Hey, what's up? Or am I the last man on earth? Polishing my shovel, L

busy time of year...

two quick thoughts though:

Haneke's new film Das weiße Band looks like it might be a more promising take on similar themes to the ones found in Caché. i've only read a little and seen trailers, but it seems to take a look at the development of the German character through the eyes of the children who would become Nazi's. the trailers also make it out to be Haneke's take on Winter Light era Bergman, so i'm feeling a tad optimistic towards it.

about Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr., those are pretty similar movies. i find it a little odd to hate one and love the other. now i know these one name threads can become difficult because we always wind up talking about other people, but care to elaborate anyway?

I understand that, Lost Highway isn't ultimately explainable while Mulholland Drive is. I personally much prefer Lost Highway.

I understand that, Lost Highway isn't ultimately explainable while Mulholland Drive is. I personally much prefer Lost Highway.

it's been awhile since i saw Lost Highway, but i thought that the main character just goes insane after encountering the same psychological roadblocks in his fantasy that he did in reality so his mind starts going over the same situations again and again in an attempt to iron out the kinks.

Michael Haneke - Das weisse Band:Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009)

this is a good one, maybe Haneke's best. it has basically all of his favorite themes, only striped of his usual patronization and taken to the next level with flawless acting and cinematography (it's a wonder what you can do in post-production these days). recommended.

Thanks for that LG

this may be stating the obvious, but i have yet to see it expressed anywhere else so...

one point about Das weisse Band that i find to be very important is not that there's some mysterious conspiracy in the film or that the society that the characters live in creates some kind of evil fascist cabal. rather, it's the atmosphere that the society creates makes it seem like there is a mysterious conspiracy, and that feeling of conspiracy just breeds more violence. all the mysteries and acts of violence in the film are actually quite disparate, mundane and logical, but by not telling us who did what right off the bat, the film makes us feel what the characters feel. none of the characters in the film are "good" or "bad", but their repressive morals and power structures lead them to do "wrong" things or seek out parties to hold "responsible". this, funnily enough, is the trap that people fall into when they say (seemingly genuinely) that the children (as a cabal) were responsible for everything that happened in the film. they don't seem to realize that they are acting out the fascist behavior that the film is trying to illustrate.