The simultaneous arrival at Cinema 21 of Austrian director
Michael Haneke’s two most recent films, THE PIANO TEACHER (shown in PIFF)
and CODE UNKNOWN, provides the opportunity to take fuller consideration of one
of cinema’s most provocative, controversial and talented directors. Haneke
has said “The problem is not how do I show violence, but how do I show the
viewer his own position in relation to violence and its portrayal? Haneke’s
gaze is societal, and his questions are about what it is that we want and value
in post-industrial life. What he dares to see is a complex web of social, political
and ethical issues. He does not promise that the watching is easy.
APRIL 25 THu 7 P.M.
guild theatre
THE SEVENTH CONTINENT
AUSTRIA 1989
DIRECTOR: MICHAEL HANEKE Haneke gained international attention for the first part
of his trilogy (followed by BENNY’S VIDEO and 71 FRAGMENTS) he described
as being a report “on the progressive emotional glaciation of Austria.”
In an austere style that’s all the more powerful for its understatement,
the meticulous, horrifying preparations made by a young bourgeois couple to take
their own lives and that of their uncomprehending daughter are dispassionately
chronicled. Haneke offers no easy reasons for their actions, but his telling images,
and the precision of the performances evoke society’s malaise with crystal-clear
lucidity. (111 mins.)
MAY 4 5 SAT 7 p.m., SUN 4:30 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
FUNNY GAMES
AUSTRIA 1997
DIRECTOR: MICHAEL HANEKE Haneke’s best-known film is a provocative but profoundly
serious variation on the murder thriller in which a couple and their son find
their home invaded by two ultra-polite but terrifyingly sadistic young men. Haneke
breaks the rules of the genre by using Brechtian tactics to confront us with our
own consumption of violent images and narratives, and showing not violent acts
themselves but their horrific physical and emotional consequences. “Masterly,
dark, disturbing and utterly relevant.” - BFI (109 mins.)
MAY 16 19 THU 7 P.M., SUN 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
BENNY’S VIDEO
AUSTRIA 1992
DIRECTOR: MICHAEL HANEKE An unsparing essay on evil in modern society, the second
part of Haneke’s trilogy examines a 14-year-old boy’s apparently motiveless,
remorseless murder of a girl he has just met and the tortured decision facing
his parents to either call the police or cover up the crime. At once a meditation
on the numbing emotional impact of technology and a condemnation of a cultural
fascination with media violence, BENNY’S VIDEO packs a riveting punch. (105
mins.)
MAY 25 26 SAT 7 p.m., sun 7 P.M.
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
71 FRAGMENTS OF A
CHRONOLOGY OF CHANCE
AUSTRIA 1994
DIRECTOR: MICHAEL HANEKE ” The climate of my trilogy comes from the experience
of coldness, lack of communication and the increase in violence in our immediate
proximity. We don’t just get our experience of civil war from Yugoslavia,
Ireland or Somalia. It is also in the workplace, subway, and in the family.”
—MH. Haneke uses a fragmentary, jigsaw-like narrative to chart a sequence
of apparently random unconnected events leading to a seemingly motiveless murder.
Together, the fragments paint a mordant portrait of contemporary urban life while
fashioning an attack on how the media package and trivialize even the most extraordinary
events. (96 mins.)
