The Michael Haneke Trilogy

It's a Haneke masterclass in filming. Not his greatest film but displays his style so well. It's what you don't see that proves to be the most endearing memory of this film. As ever every fragment is crafted in order to challenge and question the viewer. The guy is brilliant.

This is like a horror film in slow motion. The banality of the opening sequences as they unfold to their shocking and harrowing conclusion make the ending all the more impactful. I only wish the director had explored more the reasons why the characters took the decision they did.

Goodness - where to begin? I guess I shall take them one at a time.

The 7th Continent is a disconcertingly suburban film that says some fairly hideosu things about modern society and the family. The film is shot is long segments representing the stages in the evolution of the central tragedy. The performances are haunting, the outcome horrendous and the questions it leaves the viewer with resonant and troubling. I was left with a profound sense of pity for the family in question. A film about alienation and the repsonse of a family to it.

Benny's Video is about a tight Roald Dahl or even Saki-like web constructed by the eponymous 'hero,' a highly dangerous teenager with a frightening fascination fr violence and disconnection from it's results (possibly). His unfeeling brutality makes him a truly terrifying character and reveal a recurrent theme in Hanekes' work. Of the three this film links heavily to Funny Games and offers a window into the later film. Again a deeply troubling question is posed to the viewer - how far would and should one go to protect their family? Haneke's answers show a tragic logic operating. Th continued backdrop of modern mediated war-zones only add resonance to the troubled idea of 'looking after one's own.'

The third is a masterpiece of editing building a social panorama, showing the last few days before a massacre. Again Haneke eschews the more obvious plotting and moralising to give a factual, life-like and therefore even more tragic outcome to the film. Disconnection (of the audience, of the protagonist) again is a theme, this time served by the lack of authorial voice in telling you what to think and feel. Instead we observe, react and assimilate the experience in a near unmediated way. And the we are left to reflect.

Of the three Benny's video is the most plotted and so it perhaps deviates from this technique a little. Overall though, rent these films - they will change how you watch cinema. Certainly the most important film maker currently operating, perhaps he is peerless through history also?

The tale of a teen murder as seen and committed by a teen. This movie I found confusing, due to being a German speaker and seeing English subtitles appear throughout the movie,the translations not being fully accurate either. Still, it passed a rather uneventful morning.