When a land surveyor arrives at a small snowy village, local authorities refuse Read More »
Tag Archives: Michael Haneke
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance AKA 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls (1994) Michael Haneke, Gabriel Cosmin Urdes, Lukas Miko, Otto Grünmandl
71 scenes revolving around a recent immigrant, a couple that has just adopted a daughter, a college student and a lonely old man. Read More »
The White Ribbon / Das weiße Band – Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009) Michael Haneke, Christian Friedel, Ernst Jacobi, Leonie Benesch, Drama, Mystery
From July, 1913 to the outbreak of World War I, a series of incidents take place in a German village. A horse trips on a wire and throws the rider; a woman falls to her death through rotted planks; the local baron’s son is hung upside down in a mill; parents slap and bully their children; a man is cruel to his long-suffering lover; another sexually abuses his daughter. People disappear. A callow teacher, who courts a nanny in the baron’s household, narrates the story and tries to investigate the connections among these accidents and crimes. What is foreshadowed? Are the children holy innocents? God may be in His heaven, but all is not right with the world; the center cannot hold.
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La pianiste / The Piano Teacher (2001) Michael Haneke, Isabelle Huppert, Annie Girardot, Benoît Magimel, Drama, Music, Romance
Erika Kohut is a pianist, teaching music. Schubert and Schumann are her forte, but she’s not quite at concert level. She’s approaching middle age, living with her mother who is domineering then submissive; Erika is a victim then combative. With her students she is severe. She visits a sex shop to watch DVDs; she walks a drive-in theater to stare at couples having sex. Walter is a self-assured student with some musical talent; he auditions for her class and is forthright in his attraction to her. She responds coldly then demands he let her lead. Next she changes the game with a letter, inviting him into her fantasies. How will he respond; how does sex have power over our other faculties?
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