Michael Haneke


(Copyright © 1999-2019 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )

7.2 The Seventh Continent (1989)
7.0 Benny's Video (1992)
6.8 71 Fragments in a Chronology of Chance (1994)
8.0 Funny Games (1997)
7.0 The Piano Teacher (2001)
7.0 Code Unknown (2001)
6.9 Time of the Wolf (2003)
8.0 Hidden (2005)
7.3 The White Ribbon (2009)
6.6 Amour (2012)
7.5 Happy End (2017)
Links:

Michael Haneke studied philosophy at the University of Wien (Vienna). His pessimistic, lugubrious existentialist philosophy, centered around the theme of "emotional glaciation", permeates his films.

Haneke debuted with Der Siebente Kontinent/ The Seventh Continent (1989), the first installment of his "emotional glaciation" trilogy, whose protagonists are incapable of emotions. The first part of the film depicts their emotion-less daily routine. The last part depicts their emotion-less suicide. It is not an impulsive suicide but a very slow ritual of self-destruction, almost a metaphor for the self-destruction that has been going on all those years of senseless routine. The story is minimalist to the extreme, not only in the plot but also in the visual aspect. The camera ignores the faces of the couple, and instead indulges on inanimate objects such as a door bell, a bowl of cereal, an alarm clock, the windshield of the car. Inspiration comes from Antonioni's poems of alienation, Robert Bresson's ascetic cinema, and Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.

The first scene is about an average middle-class family as they wake up and assemble for breakfast: it's a perfectly normal scene, but it is made unusual and ominous by the fact that the camera does not show us their faces. The woman, Anna, writes a lengthy letter to her in-laws. It is mostly good news: her brother Alex has recovered from a nervous breakdown, her daughter Eva has not had an asthma attack in a while, her husband Georg has been promoted and she inherited some money when her mother died.
At school the girl pretends to be blind, but the teacher outsmarts her. It is not a coincidence: her mother is an eye doctor (we see an excruciating analysis of an elderly woman's eyesight through the lenses of a machine). When the couple goes shopping at the end of the workday, we still see no face. We see lots of details (even the shoe on the accelerator pedal when the car starts) and other people's faces, but not the faces of the protagonists. We finally see them when they sit at the table for dinner: Anna, Georg, Alex and Eva. During the dinner Alex breaks into tears: obviously he hasn't recovered yet.
The then story repeats itself. One year has gone by, but the routine is the same, from the alarm clock to the drive downtown. Anna writers another letter full of good news to her in-laws, mentioning that Georg has taken the place of his boss and that her brother has gone back to work in earnest and seems to be normal again. We see her husband at work in his new position as the boss of the department when the old boss comes to pick up his belongings. There is unspoken cruelty in the coldness with which the old boss is treated in what used to be his kingdom.
One rainy night the family is driving to a car wash and has to slow down because the police are clearing a car accident. They drive slowly by the dead bodies already covered with tarp. Then they drive to an automatic car wash without uttering a word. As the car rolls through the various washing stages, Anna starts crying and sobbing. After a visit to his parents, Georg writes them a letter to tell them what he didn't tell them in person: he has quit his job, and his wife left her lab to her brother. They buy axe, scissors, saw, etc: lots of tools as if they were going to remodel the house. They withdraw all their money and tell the bank clerk that they are moving to Australia (inspired by the billboard outside the car wash that advertises Australia as a tourist destination) Anna calls the teacher to inform her that her daughter will not be going to school. Georg writes a letter to his parents explaining why they have taken the drastic decision they have taken, and why they decided to take Eva with them. They calmly eat a meal. They seem to be smiling a bit, which is unusual. The telephone rings. Georg unhooks it so it won't ring again. The man begins to methodically tear all their clothes with the scissors. Then takes a hammer and a saw and begins to demolish furniture, including the fish tank. The girl cries scared seeing the fish agonize on the floor, but her mom calms her down. Then they flush their money down the toilet. Then they poison the girl. The mom cries of her dead body. Then it's the turn of the mom. Then the man writes on the wall the exact date and time when they died. Then he drinks his poison. Then he lies down next to his wife and his daughter watching tv. We see fragments of his life flash by.

Benny's Video (1992) is one of the films that were obsessed with the dehumanizing power of video technology, like Richard Linklater's Slacker (1991) and Peter Hyams' Stay Tuned (1992), or, further back in time, Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist (1982) and David Cronenberg's Videodrome (1983). Here the dehumanization has reached the terminal state. The boy shows no signs of emotional intelligence We have no access to the boy's mind. We don't know what the video of killing a pig meant to him, what his own murder means to him, what the life of his parents means to him, what their love for him means to him. The boy flips through the channels of the tv and his own video as if his video too was only one of the many channels, as good or bad as the others, simply news, simply a reportage that something that happened somewhere to someone. His language is not words but videos. When he wants to tell his parents what he did, he shows them the video of the murder. They reply with a rational discussion, a language that he doesn't understand. Nor does he understand the language of love: he is confused by the actions of his parents, unmoved by their declarations of love, by their sacrifice; and eventually betrays them. But, allegorically, the parents too speak a language that is similar to the language of video editing: they remove any trace of the murder, which is equivalent to rewinding the tape, or taping over it an exotic vacation.

Before the titles, we see a home video in which a farmer stuns a pig with a bolt gun (a gun with no bullets that sends a shock to the head) before slaughtering it. The video rewinds and then replays the shot in slow motion. Titles. During a crowded party of young people an older couple opens the door and the man, Georg, asks what is going on, and then escorts the young people to the elevator. His daughter Evi apologizes that she invited people over without telling him. Another home video shows us the party. But we are actually watching a boy watching it on his monitor. His mother, Evi's mother Anna, interrupts him and he rewinds the tape and then switches to TV news, which are about racists attacking foreign refugees and the civil war in Yugoslavia. After school the boy, Benny, watches videos of horror movies in a video shop. While paying to rent one of them, he notices a girl outside staring at the video. Back at home, he does his homework while listening to heavy-metal music. He falls asleep watching the horror movie that he rented. During choir practice the children pass a note around about something they are preparing and then pass money around and in return some pills are passed back to the buyers. At the video shop he again sees the same girl staring at the window. This time he invites her to his apartment, while his parents are away. He starts by making a video of her with his camera. Then he offers her food, and then he shows her the video of the pig killing, and we learn that his mother is in the video. He rewinds the tape and shows again the moment when the bolt gun stuns the pig. He shows her the bolt gun that was used: he stole it from the farmer. He loads it and points it at his own chest, and dares the girl to pull the trigger. The girl refuses and he calls her a coward. He then points it at her chest and she dares him to pull the trigger to show him that he too is a "coward": but he does pull the trigger. She falls to the floor in pain. Meanwhile, he's been recording everything with a camera placed on a tripod. The rest of the scene is shown on the monitor: we see Benny reloading twice the bolt gun and twice running where the girl is agonizing, and we hear twice the shot. Finally, the girl stops moaning. Benny calmly walks to the kitchen to drink a glass of water and eat a yogurt. He then searches her purse. Then he goes back to his homework while the monitor is showing the news and loud music is playing. Later he washes the blood off the sheets and hang them to dry. He proceeds to wash the blood from the floor and we see that the blood came from the girl's head, so he must have used the bolt gun on her head, just like seen in the video of the pig. He is calm and methodic throughout the gruesome operation, undressing naked so he doesn't stain his clothes. The phone rings and he accepts a friend's invitation to go out. He also films the murder scene with his camera, indulging in a close up of the bloody face of the dead girl. Then he rewinds the video, so we realize that we have been watching his home video of all of this. Benny joins his friends at a nightclub and then sleeps at his friend Ricci's house. He smokes a cigarette before falling asleep but doesn't mention the murder. The following morning he walks home but first stops to ring the bell of the place where his sister Evi lives, but she's not home. He watches briefly the people skating at a skating rink, walks around aimlessly and finally walks into a barber shop to get his hair completely removed, skinhead-style. When he gets angry, he finds his parents who were anxious about his whereabouts. His father is angry about his haircut. Before going to sleep, Benny watches a comedy on TV that makes fun of English royalty. The following morning a boy complains that Benny borrowed his book and didn't return it. Benny denies it, then he hits the boy in the stomach in front of the teacher. He walks out of the classroom without saying a word. In the evening he is watching the news on TV when his parents come to talk to him. While they are watching the TV set, he switches to his video of the murder and his parents can see it in all the details. They stare speechless. Benny turns off the TV set and shows the corpse in the closet. His father takes the gun and the video, and calmly interrogates his son. His only concern is to make sure that nobody can find out about the murder. His mother is the only one who shows a little bit (but only a little bit) of shock. After he goes to sleep, the parents discuss the situation. They rationally decide that to turn him in to the police would mean to ruin his life forever, and also destroy their own reputation. They decide to dismember the corpse in small pieces and flush them down the toilet. Anna and Benny fly to Egypt. Videos shown on the TV set of the hotel show them having a lot of fun. When his mother has the one and only nervous breakdown, Benny is puzzled and embarrassed. They fly back home after a week. Georg only discusses their suntan. Not a word about what he had to do in order to get rid of the corpse. Before he falls asleep, Georg comes to say that he loves him, and that everything will be ok. He asks Benny why he did, and Benny doesn't know that to say. He tries to guess his own motives as if he was guessing another person's motives. Benny returns to his routine of homework, loud music and home videos. Evi throws another party, but this time her parents are invited. We see the party as a home video on their TV set watched by them, Anna and Georg and Benny. The boy choir performs and Georg and Anna are in the audience. The we see the video of when he was overhearing his parents discuss the plan of dismembering the corpse (the video only shows the door ajar). He is showing the video to the police. The detective asks him why he came to confess. He doesn't know what to answer. He provides the addresses of where to find his parents. Obviously unable to understand what he has just done, he asks if he can go home. Escorted out, he meets his parents, who have already been arrested. They stare at each other without saying a word. Then Benny simply says "sorry" and is escorted out. Meanwhile we hear news broadcast about the endless civil war in Yugoslavia.

The trilogy was completed by 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls/ 71 Fragments in a Chronology of Chance (1994), a crime drama of sorts. The film follows an illegal immigrant who is still a child, a student college, a lonely pensioner, a college student, a security agent, and a couple trying to adopt a child. Their destinies converge on Christmas' Eve. It can also be seen as the chain of events that lead from a robbery (of guns) to a senseless massacre (committed using one of those guns), although the thief and the killer never met and never knew each other. And makes you wonder about how many other crimes will be committed with the other stolen guns.

The film opens with TV footage of news programs discussing international foreign crises in places like Somalia and Haiti. A boy wades a river and jumps into the back of a truck that transports appliances. He watches the traffic as the truck enters a city, Vienna. A young man steals guns and bullets from an underground armory. The truck parks and the boy jumps out. The alarm clock wakes up a middle-aged man and his wife, whose little baby has a fever. The boy is eating from garbage trucks. A college student plays a game with his roommate that consists in making a cross out of pieces of paper. A married couple, the Brunners, are at a foster home to meet Anni, who is playing with other children Anni is shy to accept a gift but then grabs it and runs away when another children tries to take it. Two security agents picks up money at the bank on pension day. We see the face of one of them. One of the elderly people in line to cash their pension is the father of one of the tellers. She gets upset that he is there and says she will call him. The boy watches a mother with children playing with a dog in a park. They leave their coats unattended. The college student stares out of a window and then walks downstairs to look at the window from behind and we see the signs made by the police that identify where a dead body was lying: someone jumped from that window. A middle-aged man (the pensioner?) prepares a lonely dinner while watching TV news. The boy wanders in the streets and steals a comic book. Then he reads it in a subway station. The college student practices ping-pong (a pointless lengthy scene) The young man who robbed the armory is stopped by police that are investigating the theft but they only check his id. The Brunners are reading in bed. They turn off the light and sleep. The college student plays again the "cross" game but this time the loser refuses to pay. The boy recognizes someone from his home country (Romania) who refuses to help him. We see international news on TV (strikes in France, Kurdish terrorism, etc). The alarm clock wakes up the bank's security agent. His first action is to pray religiously, while his wife feeds their baby. The boy begs in the streets. The thief meets a man at a cafe and a transaction takes place. The Brunners receive a visit from a social worker and Anni, but the girl is still grumpy. She demands to see her future room. One of the stolen guns is sold in a another cafe and later delivered to the college student, the prize he won at the "cross" game. The boy walks along the edge of the subway platform and sees another boy doing the same on the other side of the platform. The Brunners take Anni to the zoo. Anni doesn't want to be hugged. The coach scolds the college student for his performance at a ping-pong match. The pensioner is watching TV when his daughter calls, but they get into little arguments. He says that he is sorry for existing and asks to say a few words to his grand-daughter Sissi. At night the boy breaks into a car and steals food and a purse. He finds a camera inside. The security agent who prays has a silent dinner with his wife. Then they argue and he slaps her. She forgives him right away and keeps eating. He seems to feel sorry but doesn't apologize, and keeps eating as if nothing happened. The boy takes pictures of people in a shopping mall. A cop chases him. He drops the camera. The college student calls his mom from a phone booth. The pensioner, eating his lonely dinner again, watches a TV program in which the Romanian boy gets interviewed through a translator. We now learn that he paid a driver to take him to the border and then he waded the river to the other side of the border (the first scene). The boy describes his life, a street child in Romania, who saw two friends die, and then sleeping in empty homes and stealing. We learn that his name is Marian and that he has been arrested. The Brunners are also watching the same story and they get emotional. The police search the apartment of the armory thief but don't find any guns. We see footage of TV news about Lebanon and Yugoslavia. The college student plays mikado and bets his gun against the friend's watch. The friend is also the one who invented the "cross" game: it's a computer game. The Brunners visit Marian, interested in adopting him, after being disappointed with the girl Anni. It is Christmas' Eve. We see footage of TV news about Christmas in Yugoslavia among snipers and of pop star Michael Jackson. The security agent leaves home for work, armed, while his wife feeds their baby. The Brunner wife is already teaching German to the Romanian boy. The security agent picks up suitcases full of money (we see that his name is Hans when they check his id), puts them in his van and drives out. The pensioner dresses up and walks out of his apartment. The college student is driving in heavy traffic and stops at a gas station. He pumps gasoline in his car but then doesn't have enough cash to pay so he has to walk to the bank. The bank is crowded and he can't leave the car at the gas station, so he tries to cut the line, but one of the people in line throws him violently to the floor. The student walks back into the car, not knowing what to do. The Brunner wife parks the car by the bank. She and the Romanian boy walk into the bank. But then she walks out and leaves the boy alone in the car. The pensioner gets off the bus and walks into the bank, presumably to see again his daughter for a few seconds. The security agent delivers the suitcases to the pensioner's daughter at the bank. The college student grabs his gun, locks his car at the gas station, walks into the bank again, and shoots people at random. Then he walks outside, shoots a few drivers while crossing the street, walks back into his car, and shoots himself. For a while the camera simply shows the blood coming out of his body. Then we see TV footage (this time it's fictitious) of this incident. The police are searching for a motive. We are informed that three people died, and we guess that it must be: the Brunner wife, the pensioner and the security agent. The boy Marian is still waiting in the car. Then we see footage of real TV news about Christmas in war-devastated Yugoslavia, and about pop star Michael Jackson claiming he's innocent of child molestation, the same ones we've already seen.

After an adaptation of Kafka's Das Schloss/ The Castle (1995), Funny Games (1997) is a brutal fresco of mindless sadistic adolescent violence (two kids torture a family) a` la Kubrick's Clockwork Orange. and Wenders's The End of Violence, but without any major physical violence, enhanced with Pirandellian and Becket-ian actor self-consciuosness. The psychos here enjoy humiliating and psychological torture. They enjoy playing with the minds (not the bodies) of their victims. That's why the proceedings are so slow and quiet. That's where the terror comes from: not from violence but from quiescence.
The game that the psychos play is a game with the human mind. The torturers enjoy the agony of human beings trying to make sense of the irrational.
The premise is an old Hitchcock-ian trick: the devastation caused by an unpredictable, irrational event to a simple ordinary life. But Haneke drags that premise to its extreme consequences: the complete annihilation of the victim's psychology.
Haneke himself behaves like the torturer. He occasionally lets hope creep out only to smash it in the next sequence (notably when he even rewinds his own film under the nose of the viewer). Haneke humiliates the viewer's desire for a happy ending, as much as his characters humiliate their victims. Haneke patiently and quietly toys with the viewer the same way that his characters toy with their victims.
Another dimension of the drama that sets this one apart is the casual reference to the atheism of the victims that occurs towards the ending. All of the sudden the viewer realizes that they never invoked the help of God. In the old days it was the evil ones who did not believe in God. Now it's the victims.

A film trailing a boat is driving through an idyllic forest (shown from a helicopter). Inside a couple, Anne and George, are playing a game: guessing the title of classical musical pieces. They have a little boy in the back seat. As they drive past the mansion of their friends who are on the lawn with two young strangers, who appear to be scions of wealthy families, she says "hi" but the friends hardly respond. Fred walks by to introduce one of the two youngsters, the polite and shy Paul. Later, when Anne is alone at home, the apparently courteous and servile Paul returns to borrow some eggs. On the way out he drops the eggs and then asks for more and then breaks them too, and Anne realizes that his manners are not so good after all. Minutes later the barking of the dog announces that Paul is back, and this time he is with his friend Peter. Both are all clad in white, wearing white gloves and seem nervous. She gets nervous too as she doesn't understand what they want. Peter asks permission to test George's golf clubs. Anne loses her patience, especially after Peter calls his friend "Tom" and not Paul. Anne asks them to leave, but Peter demands the eggs before leaving. Anne gets angry. George walks in and initially thinks that Anne is overreacting but when he asks them to leave Peter hits him with the club, breaking his knee. The kids keep talking calmly, in a plain tone. The family is terrified as it becomes apparent that the two are psychos. Peter asks them to guess why he has the gulf club in his pocket: because he tested the club with something else... their dog (whose dead body they lead Anne to find in the trunk of the car). The two kids are in no hurry. They are still calm and relaxed. A boat approaches: it's their friends Robert and Betsy. Paul stands by Anne as she welcomes the guests. When the friends have left and she's back inside, she asks the kinds a question with a "please" and the kids remark the "please", implying that the psychology has changed: she has realized that she's the slave, not the master. When George tries to restore his authority, they hit him in the leg and punch Anne in the stomach. Not much violence, but enough to assert "their" authority. Paul calmly offers a bet to them: he wants to bet that they will be dead in twelve hours. George tries to make sense of their behavior, but they don't want money. In fact, the kids make fun of his seriousness. They want to play. Paul grabs the child and threatens to suffocate and strangle him if the man does not order his wife to take off her clothes. It's a double humiliation: the man has to ask his wife, and his wife has to strip naked. Then they sit on the couch and enjoy the strip tease, while tears are rolling down her cheeks. Then they let her get dressed again. While she is getting dressed, George helps the child escape. The child hides upstairs and waits for the dark to sneak out. Paul calmly tapes the half-naked Anne's feet and hands so she cannot escape and then sets out to find the boy. The boy finds a gun but Paul challenges him to pull the trigger knowing that there is no bullet. After the boy is reunited with his parents, the kids load the gun and Paul lets Peter decide who to kill first. Then the camera follows Paul while he goes to the kitchen and looks for food. We hear the gunshot and someone agonizing and crying, while Paul calmly fixes himself a snack. Then the camera returns to the living room but only to show stains of blood on the tv set. We don't see them as they say goodbye and calmly leave the house. Then the camera shows the woman, getting up from the armchair, next to her dead son. As she hops around the living room looking for a knife, we see that George is still moving. After she frees herself, she hugs him and helps him get on his feet. But then they find out that the kids have locked the doors of the house... and we realize that the "game" is not over, that the two kids are still playing with their victims (and that the director is still playing with the viewer). In a lengthy sequence she first tries in vain to reactivate their cellular phone. Then George tells her to leave the house and look for help. She runs outside and hesitates to stop the first car. She stops the second one... Minutes later George hears a noise and sees the golf ball rolling towards him: they are back, with his wife. The want to play another game. They have to decide who gets killed next. They ask Anne to help. Anne does not reply. Peter uses his knife on her husband (the camera sticks with Anne's pain-stricken face). Anne accepts to play the game. Paul asks her to say a prayer to God. Anne confesses that she doesn't know any, and it's obvious that she doesn't believe in God (she never once begged God for help, nor does she now). Peter suggests one and she repeats it. Then Paul asks her to say the prayer backwards. In a tone reminiscent of television quiz shows, Paul promises her a prize: choosing who will be killed first and even with which device (the slow painful death by knife or the fast painless death by gun). She grabs the gun and shoots Peter dead. Paul curses, walks around the living room, finds the remote control, rewinds the movie (we literally see the last scene quickly backwards) and restarts from the point where she grabbed the gun. This time he grabs the gun from her in time, and then coldly executes George. It's morning. The kids take Anne outside and lay her down in the boat, bound and gagged. They sail to the middle of the lake, while casually discussing philosophy. Then they push the woman down and continue their conversation on the way to another house. Next we see Paul calling at another house, the house of the friends who briefly visited Anne, asking for some eggs... (Note: Mel Brooks' Spaceballs had already employed the trick of rewinding the film that is playing).
(Translation by/ Tradotto da Gabriele DiSiena)

Funny Games (1997) è un affresco brutale dell’insensata e sadica violenza adolescenziale (due ragazzi torturano una famiglia) simile ad Arancia Meccanica di Kubrick e Crimini invisibili di Wenders, ma senza alcun tipo di violenza fisica importante, arricchito dall'autocoscienza degli attori pirandelliani e beckettiani. Gli psicopatici godono attraverso torture umilianti e psicologiche. A loro piace giocare con le menti (non i corpi) delle loro vittime. Ecco perché il procedimento è così lento e silenzioso. Ecco da dove proviene il terrore: non dalla violenza ma dalla quiescenza.

Il gioco attuato dagli psicopatici è basato sulla mente umana. I torturatori si godono l'agonia degli esseri umani che cercano di dare un senso all'irrazionale.

La premessa è un vecchio trucco hitchcockiano: la devastazione causata da un evento imprevedibile e irrazionale che sconvolge la semplice vita ordinaria. Ma Haneke porta questa premessa alle sue estreme conseguenze: il completo annientamento della psicologia della vittima.

Lo stesso Haneke si comporta come un torturatore. Di tanto in tanto lascia che la speranza si insinui solo per distruggerla nella sequenza successiva (in particolare quando riavvolge persino il suo film sotto il naso dello spettatore). Haneke umilia il desiderio dello spettatore di un lieto fine, così come i suoi personaggi umiliano le loro vittime. Haneke gioca pazientemente e silenziosamente con lo spettatore nello stesso modo in cui i suoi personaggi giocano con le loro vittime.

Un'altra dimensione distintiva del dramma è quella che fa riferimento all'ateismo delle vittime che notiamo in modo inaspettato verso il finale. All'improvviso lo spettatore si rende conto che non hanno mai invocato l'aiuto di Dio. Ai vecchi tempi erano i carnefici che non credevano in Dio. Adesso sono le vittime.

Una macchina che trasporta una barca si sta dirigendo verso una foresta idilliaca (mostrata da un elicottero). All'interno una coppia, Anne e George, sta facendo un gioco: indovinare il titolo di brani musicali classici. Hanno un bambino sul sedile posteriore. Mentre passano davanti alla villa dei loro amici che sono sul prato con due giovani sconosciuti, che sembrano essere rampolli di famiglie benestanti, lei dice "ciao" ma gli amici a malapena rispondono. Fred presenta uno dei due giovani, il gentile e timido Paul. Più tardi, quando Anne è sola a casa, Paul, apparentemente cortese e servile, torna a prendere in prestito delle uova. All'uscita lascia cadere le uova e poi ne chiede altre per poi rompere anche queste, e Anne si rende conto che non ha delle così buone maniere, dopotutto. Pochi minuti dopo l'abbaiare del cane annuncia che Paul è tornato, e questa volta è con il suo amico Peter. Entrambi sono tutti vestiti di bianco, indossano guanti bianchi e sembrano nervosi. Anche lei si innervosisce perché non capisce cosa vogliono. Peter chiede il permesso di provare le mazze da golf di George. Anne perde la pazienza, soprattutto dopo che Peter chiama il suo amico "Tom" e non Paul. Anne chiede loro di andarsene, ma Peter chiede delle uova prima di farlo. Anne si arrabbia. George entra e inizialmente pensa che Anne stia reagendo in modo eccessivo, ma quando chiede loro di andarsene Peter lo colpisce con la mazza, rompendogli il ginocchio. I ragazzi continuano a parlare con calma, con tono pacato. La famiglia è terrorizzata quando diventa evidente che i due sono psicopatici. Peter chiede loro di indovinare perché ha la mazza da golf in tasca: perché ha testato la mazza con qualcos'altro ... il loro cane (i due hanno guidato Anne a trovarne il cadavere nel bagagliaio dell'auto). I due ragazzi non hanno fretta. Sono ancora calmi e rilassati. Si avvicina una barca: sono i loro amici Robert e Betsy. Paul è al fianco di Anne mentre accoglie gli ospiti. Quando gli amici se ne sono andati e lei è tornata dentro, fa ai ragazzi una domanda chiedendo "per favore" e loro sottolineano il "per favore", sottintendendo che la psicologia è cambiata: ha capito che lei è la schiava, non la padrona. Quando George cerca di ripristinare la sua autorità, lo colpiscono a una gamba e danno un pugno allo stomaco di Anne. Non molta violenza, ma abbastanza per affermare la "loro" autorità. Paul con calma propone loro una scommessa: vuole scommettere che saranno morti entro dodici ore. George cerca di dare un senso al loro comportamento, ma non vogliono soldi. I ragazzi infatti prendono in giro la sua serietà. Vogliono giocare. Paul afferra il bambino e minaccia di soffocarlo e strangolarlo se l'uomo non ordina alla moglie di togliersi i vestiti. È una doppia umiliazione: è il marito che deve chiedere a sua moglie, e sua moglie deve spogliarsi nuda. Poi i ragazzi si siedono sul divano e si godono lo strip tease, mentre le lacrime scendono lungo le guance di lei. Poi la lasciano vestire di nuovo. Mentre si veste, George aiuta il bambino a scappare. Il bambino si nasconde al piano di sopra e aspetta che si faccia buio per sgattaiolare fuori. Paul lega con calma i piedi e le mani di Anne seminuda in modo che non possa scappare e poi si mette alla ricerca del bambino. Il bambino trova un’arma ma Paul lo sfida a premere il grilletto sapendo che non c'è nessun proiettile. Dopo che il bambino si è riunito ai suoi genitori, i ragazzi caricano l’arma e Paul lascia che Peter decida chi uccidere per primo. Poi la telecamera segue Paul mentre va in cucina e cerca del cibo. Sentiamo lo sparo e qualcuno che piange agonizzante, mentre Paul si prepara tranquillamente uno spuntino. Poi la telecamera torna in soggiorno ma solo per mostrare macchie di sangue sul televisore. Non vediamo i ragazzi mentre salutano ed escono di casa con calma. Poi la telecamera mostra la donna, alzatasi dalla poltrona, accanto al figlio morto. Mentre corre in soggiorno in cerca di un coltello, vediamo che George si sta ancora muovendo. Dopo essersi liberata, lo abbraccia e lo aiuta a rimettersi in piedi. Ma poi scoprono che i ragazzi hanno chiuso a chiave le porte di casa ... e ci accorgiamo che il "gioco" non è finito, che i due ragazzi stanno ancora giocando con le loro vittime (e che il regista sta ancora giocando con lo spettatore). In una lunga sequenza, lei cerca invano di riattivare il cellulare. Poi George le dice di uscire di casa e cercare aiuto. Corre fuori ed esita a fermare la prima macchina. Ferma la seconda...Pochi minuti dopo George sente un rumore e vede la palla da golf che rotola verso di lui: sono tornati, con la moglie. Vogliono fare un altro gioco. Devono decidere chi verrà ucciso dopo. Chiedono ad Anne di aiutarli. Anne non risponde. Peter usa il coltello su suo marito (la telecamera punta fisso sul volto dolorante di Anne). Anne accetta di giocare. Paul le chiede di dire una preghiera a Dio. Anne confessa di non conoscerne nessuna, ed è ovvio che non crede in Dio (non ha chiesto aiuto a Dio neanche una volta, e non lo farà adesso). Peter ne propone una e lei la ripete. Poi Paul le chiede di dire la preghiera al contrario. Con un tono che ricorda i quiz televisivi, Paul le promette un premio: scegliere chi sarà ucciso per primo ed anche in che modo (la morte lenta e dolorosa con il coltello o la morte veloce e indolore con il fucile). Lei afferra l’arma e spara a Peter uccidendolo. Paul impreca, gira per il soggiorno, trova il telecomando, riavvolge il film (vediamo letteralmente l'ultima scena velocemente riavvolta) e riparte dal punto in cui lei ha afferrato l’arma. Questa volta lui afferra il fucile in tempo, e poi uccide freddamente George. È mattina. I ragazzi portano Anne fuori e la fanno sdraiare sulla barca, legata e imbavagliata. Navigano verso il centro del lago, discutendo in modo disinvolto di filosofia. Quindi buttano giù la donna e continuano la loro conversazione mentre si dirigono verso un’altra casa. Poi vediamo Paul chiamare qualcuno in quest’altra casa, quella degli amici che avevano fatto una visita veloce ad Anne, chiedendo delle uova...

(Nota: Mel Brooks aveva già utilizzato il trucco di riavvolgere il film in riproduzione in Balle spaziali).

Code Unbekannt/ Cone Inconnu/ Code Unknown (2001) lacks the visceral sadistic intensity of Haneke's masterpieces. It adopts a realist almost sociological approach instead the usual hyper-psychological violence. Its leitmotiv is the melting pot of Western society, not the decadence of Western society. Its structure of parallel episodes that are more or less inter-related is not new, but few such movies have used interlocking stories that are so brief and cryptic. Furthermore, almost every episode is a very long take and most of them end abruptly. The premise of the "story" is to show the devastating consequences of an apparently insignificant incident. An underlying theme is the "cowardice" and coldness of the rich Western Europeans. When something evil happens, they pretend not to see and not to hear: they want to pretend that order reigns unchallenged. So the protagonist does not help the child that is being murdered, and nobody helps her when she becomes the target of a punk. It's the immigrants who are more likely to speak up and stand up, to accept that disorder, and not order, is the norm, and that one has to fight to restore order. By analogy, the wars in Kosovo and in Afghanistan are juxtaposed with the peace in France, as if they were two sides of the same coin. Society does everything it can to humiliate the immigrants, but in the end it's them who have dignity, whereas the rich Western Europeans are empty.

A little child against a wall is impersonating something. It is not clear if she is afraid or playing. The camera turns and shows that other children are staring at her, puzzled. It's a class of deaf children who are playing at guessing what she meant by her action. We will never know the answer because the children cannot guess, and the film moves on.
Anne leaves her building and meets Jean in the street. Jean is her boyfriend Georges' teenage brother and does not want to live with his father anymore. The camera walks with them down the street until they part. He needs a place to stay, and she gives him the code to open the door of her building. Then Jean retraces his steps towards her apartment. On the way he angrily throws a piece of paper instead of money in the hat that a panhandling Romanian woman keeps between her legs while she's sitting on a sidewalk. A black kid, Amadou, sees him and runs after him, demanding that he apologizes to the poor woman. A middle-aged Arab shopkeeper tries to break up the fight. The cops arrest the black kid and the Romanian woman. But it is obvious that the black kid is a nice human being and the Romanian woman didn't bother anyone. The cause of the trouble and the mean-spirited being was Jean. Amadou asks the cops to treat him with dignity, but they insist on grabbing his arms as if he were dangerous. Amadou then resists and they have to beat him up. (He was arrested unfairly but at least he wanted to maintain his dignity, but that's precisely what the cops wanted to take away from him).
We see Georges' photographs of Kosovo.
A black taxi driver receives a call that Amadou has been arrested.
Anne is shooting a movie in an ugly warehouse. Someone (whom we never see) has locker her up and tells her that she will never get out alive, that he merely wants to watch her die. She starts crying.
Jean's father is eating at a table. Jean walks in. The father gives him food. Then the camera follows him as he walks into the bathroom and starts crying.
Business people are boarding a plane. Cops escort the panhandler to the plane (she's been deported).
The mother of the arrested boy, Amadou, cries in her African language to the middle-aged taxi driver. She complains that Amadou, a teacher of deaf children and a kind man, was beated by the cops. She only complains that Amadou spends a lot of time with white girls.
The illegal immigrant, Maria, arrives at her hometown in Romania, an industrial area permanently enveloped in pollution.
While ironing her dress at home, Anne can hear the screams of a child.
Deaf children engage in collective African drumming.
Georges on the phone talks about his Kosovo photos. Anne walks in and caresses his face.
Jean's father lives in a farm alone.
Elegantly dressed, Anne visits an ancient apartment, opens a wardrobe's door and finds a wall. They are shooting another scene of the film. The director is not happy, and asks that the actors replay the scene. They do it again and the the camera shows it from a different angle.
Over dinner with friends and Georges, Anne discusses the film: it's about an inspector who investigates a series of murders. In the same restaurant Amadou, the black kid, is sitting at a table with a white girlfriend. Back to Anne's table, they discuss Georges' photos, and then she finally notices the black kid who had a fight with Jean.
In Romania, Maria gets a ride from an acquaintance. She tells him that she was a teacher in France and that she came back to Romania because she missed the children.
Anne walks into her apartment and reads a letter. Worried, she tries to phone Georges but he is out. She rings the bell of the neighbor, an old lady, ands her if she wrote the letter. The old lady denies it, as if she didn't want to have anything to do with it. The letter begs her to help the child who is abused and whose screams she hears all the time.
Jean's father reads the letter from Jean who has left him.
At a supermarket, Anne talks with Georges about the child who is always screaming and the letter. As they argue, she tells him that she aborted while he was away; but then denies it.
Amadou's little brother has been the victim of bullying (another child stole his jacket).
At the farm, Jean's father kills all his cows.
Another scene is being shot: Anne alone on the stage of a theater, laughing. Just three people in the audience.
Amadou's sister is a deaf girl (one of the children of the first scene). She and Amadou talk about her father, who neglects his family.
Georges in the subway takes pictures of unsuspecting peope with a camera hanging on his chest.
Jean's father tells Georges and Anne that he had remodeled the house for Jean. Now that Jean is gone, he cannot run the farm by himself. Georges was the first one to leave the countrysde for the big city. Anne tells him that she just finished shooting a thriller. He doesn't want to go and look for Jean, nor does Georges.
Anne and her old neighbor attend the funeral of the little child who was always screaming. They leave together without saying a word, but one can feel the old woman reproaching Anne for not doing anything and Anne feeling guilty about it. The old lady, on the other hand, was afraid of getting involved, and denied having written the letter. Both were cowards.
Georges describes photos from Afghanistan but the film shows us the pictures of ordinary people that he took in the subway and in the streets. He reads from his diary.
Maria is about to go back to Paris illegally with a group of other emigrants, and cries because she feels humiliated and embarrassed by what she has to do.
Anne is swimming in a pool with her husband when their child climbs the handrail of the balcony and almost falls to his death. It's a movie that they are watching in the studio while they add their voices to the scenes.
A car arrives in an African village.
In the subway two Arab punks annoy Anne. She moves to another seat, but one of the Arab kids insists. She ignores him. He spits on her face. Sitting near them is the Arab shopkeeper of the first scene: he is the only one to help Anne. But then they don't exchange a word. She starts crying, silently, alone. (She didn't do anything to save the abused child, and nobody does anything to save her. The Arab kid is molesting her openly, but the white Georges was molesting people too, just surreptitiously, and got away with it).
The deaf children are drumming outdoors, and their drumming now becomes the soundtrack for the rest of the film.
Maria is back to the same street but somebody else is panhandling at her favorite corner (where the two kids had the fight) and, when she picks another spot, two men send her away. In another very long shot, Maria passes a subway exit just when Anne is coming out of it. The camera abandons Maria to her destiny and follows Anne to her place.
Georges get off a taxi and walks to her same door, but doesn't know the code and therefore can't get in. (We keep hearing the children drumming).
A deaf child is making faces and the other children are trying to guess what he's doing.

La Pianiste/ The Piano Teacher (2001), adapted from Elfriede Jelinek's 1983 novel, summarizes all the themes of the previous films, adding a strong sexual element.

Erika is a middle-age piano instructor who has three personalities. At home she is the repressed and oppressed daughter of a possessive mother, who is constantly jealous of her private life. They scream and fight, but then they sleep in the same bedroom. At the Conservatory she is the stern and icy teacher who shows no emotions to her students (a girl, Anna, is giving everything she can and is terrified by Erika's judgements). When she is not home and she is not at work, she lets her secret fantasies go wild: she walks into a porn store, rents a video, locks herself in the cabin to watch it and smells the napkins that are drenched with the sperm of previous voyeurs (she's the only woman in the store).
The young, handsome Walter falls in love with her when he sees her perform at the piano at a private party. He has been learning piano as a hobby not as a profession, and Erika looks down on him, but he is sincerely enthusiastic. He is as warm to her as she is arrogant to him.
Walter insists in being admitted to her class and, the first time he gets a chance, he tells her he loves her. She is arrogant and indifferent, but then spies on him. She spends the night at a drive-in, watching couples make love in the cars (feeling an urge to pee, she is almost caught by one of the young people). When she returns home, she has a major fight with her mom who stayed up in angst waiting for her.
At a rehearsal, Anna freaks out but Walter cheers her up. Erika is visibly upset, perhaps jealous. She walks into the cloakroom, smashes a glass and drops the sharp pieces in the pocket of Anna's coat. As Erika is chatting with Walter, they hear the scream: Anna has cut herself and is in tears. Erika feels the urge to pee and walks away. Walter reaches her in the women's restrooms and kisses her. She lets him do it, and even starts masturbating him. But then stops suddenly and tells him that she wants him to do things to her in return for her sexual attentions. Walter is trying to behave like a lover, but Erika is as cold and matter of factual as usual.
Erika meets Anna's mother, who tells her in tears that Anna cannot play for two months, and therefore will miss the important recital she was preparing for. The poor girl, who is ugly and shy, has sacrificed her life for the piano, and her parents have sacrificed everything to pay for the lessons. Erika is totally indifferent to the tragedy that she has caused and only interested in Walter. Anna is living the life that Erika lived (is on her way to become what Erika is) and Erika feels no compassion for her.
Walter follows Erika to her apartment and then insist to get in. Despite her mother's protests, Erika locks herself in a room with Walter. Erika hands him a letter than contains her "desires". It contains the sickest sadistic fantasies a woman can have, particularly the desire to be beaten and raped in that house itself, so that her mother can hear it. Erika already bought all the tools to perform that sadistic ritual, but Walter leaves disgusted.
Erika goes to sleep as usual in her mother's bed, but this time jumps on her and tries to kiss her on the mouth, moaning "I love you". Her mother is shocked and disgusted, but assumes that this is a consequence of her stress.
Erika comes to realize that she really loves Walter and for the first time looks for him. She tells him that she is willing to do anything for his love. He is still upset, but she unbuttons his trousers and performs oral sex. Except that at the end she throws up in front of him, and, instead of being moved by her humiliation, he is even more disgusted by her whole personality. He insults her and walks away.
But then he shows up, in the middle of the night, at her apartment. He locks her mother in the bedroom and starts hitting Erika. Then he rapes her, just like she asked him in the letter, while her mother can hear it. Erika doesn't move, petrified.
The next day, which is the day of the concert in which she has to replace Anna at the piano, she packs a knife in her purse. She waits patiently in the concert hall for Walter to arrive, but, when he shows up, he is surrounded by his family, so cannot strike. Furious, she stabs herself in the shoulder and then leaves the concert hall.
Le Temps du Loup/ Time of the Wolf (2003) works as a summary of sorts of Haneke's previous concerns with senseless violence and the collapse of civilization. It is set in a world that has just experienced a complete collapse of the rule of law and of economic activity. We are never told what caused the anarchy (there is no voiceover narration and not even a musical soundtrack, as if to evoke the somber realistic mood of a documentary). We are presented with the post-apocalypse. It is a chilling reminder that beastly instincts still inhabit the human mind and modern civilization has simply tamed them and channeled them into artificial lives. Haneke's pessimism has never been lyrical : ironically it is lyrical in this film that is the most minimal of all. However, the film is a bit too cryptic and feels unfinished. It is by far Haneke's least powerful work. An ordinary family (a couple with two children) arrives at their house in the woods only to find that another family has taken possession of it. The man of the intruding family (also a couple with two children), Fred, points a gun at them. Georges, the legitimate owner, remains calm and obtains that his children, Eva and Ben, can wait outside while they talk. As Georges tries to negotiate, the intruder, Fred, abruptly shoots and kills him. He then tells Georges' wife Anne to leave. The intruders don't look like gangsters, they look precisely like the owners, except that they are starving. Later, Anne tries in vain to obtain help from a man, presumably an old friend: he blames her for venturing out instead of helping her. The woman and her children walk around what appears to be a ghost town in ruins. They hide in a barn where they can eat their meager supplies. Then they start roaming around, looking for food and water. At night the little boy, Ben, disappears. The mother and the teenage daughter Eva search for him in the dark. Even making a fire to see is not trivial, and eventually they set out to the barn's hay and lose all their belongings. When morning comes, a young man shows up holding Ben, who doesn't talk anymore. Anne, standing by the smoldering ruins of the barn in the middle of an empty field, talks the young man into releasing the child. The daughter befriends the stranger and he sits with them. The young man is wounded and Anne cleans his wound. The young man tells them of a train station where he hopes to catch a train. They start walking along the tracks, looking in vain for something to eat. They only find dead animals and dead people. When the train rides by, they shout in vain for it to stop. They reach the station. The young man tells them that there are people inside. Anne takes the children inside and introduces herself to a crowd of dejected people who are largely indifferent to her good manners. She meets Koslowski, the self-appointed leader of the group, mainly because he has a gun. Koslowski tries to maintain order and to come up with meaningful plans. Accused of stealing, the young man runs away, in vain lured by Eva to stay. Anne understands that her daughter would rather go with him than stay with her. A young woman, Bea, is the only person who speaks to Anne. Bea explains that a woman can get food and water from Koslowski in exchange for sexual favors and that there are supposedly 36 Just Men who might be able to save the world, and she's not sure if Koslowski is one of them. Anne is soon overwhelmed by the spectacle of the group: the hysterical young woman and her bickering husband, the large family of Polish immigrants, the endlessly praying woman, the older man who checks the news on his cell phone, etc. The nameless young man remains nearby, but does not sleep with the others inside the station, and Eva visits him. The boy confesses that he had to kill someone. He personifies the brutal struggle for surival but he's also the only one who occasionally shows remnants of empathy. Eva finds pencil and paper and writes a letter to her dead father. One night a large group joins Koslowski's group and the station gets overcrowded. Some young men recognize the Polish people and blame them for some trouble in their village. With daylight Anne recognizes the man who killed her husband but her word is meaningless without proof. She can only cry. They kill horses to eat them. It starts raining and Ben is missing again. The boy is less and less normal. Eva finds him under a wagon. The nameless young man hands her a waterproof jacket. At night the only topic that brings some comfort to the refugees is the rumor about the Just Men. Another night the angry villagers accuse the Polish immigrants of stealing their food and water and almost lynch it in front of everybody, but Eva knows who the thief is: the nameless young man who sleeps in the woods like a parasiting coyote. She finds him and yells at him, but then hides with him while the men search the woods. A girl dies and the father offers the clothes to Anne. He asks her to help him bury the girl. Bleeding from the nose, the catatonic Ben walks outside and is attracted by a fire. He drops more wood into it, perhaps to reenact the fire of the barn. Then he strips naked and is about to jump in the fire, when a man sees him and stops him in time.
Daylight. The camera is on a train that is rolling slowly through the rural landscape. The end.

Cache`/ Hidden (2005) is, first and foremost, a powerful psychological experiment about how we perceive films. After being fooled by the first scene into believing that something is wrong with our viewing equipment, we don't trust anything else. Each scene could be a video within the film. The video scenes show us something that happened but that the "film" is not telling us (except that it is showing it in the video). Since the only way to tell a video from a non-video scene is whether the camera is still or not, we also become very aware of what the camera is doing, instead of being absorbed in the story. Haneke emphasizes the contrast between the irrelevant contents of a video (mostly just a house and someone walking out of it) and its implications (someone is watching you and suddenly you are not safe anymore nor is anything that is dear to you). The camera never "says", it simply stares: Haneke makes you realize how powerful the "staring" is.
Of course, one can also associate this suspenseful story to a traditional plot of thrillers: the past comes to haunt you when you least expect it and upsets a life that seemed so routinely happy to be almost boring. The torturer turns out to be the victim.
In general, the film is very much rooted in sociopolitical discourse.
The prominent theme is racial in nature. Haneke architects the racial conflict in a manner that both implies the ethnic tension and transcends it. The fact that the white man does not want to reveal the past to his wife signals a guilt trip of sort by the ethnically pure privileged bourgeoisie. The fact that the European writer accuses the African worker of torturing him (when in fact in their childhood it was the opposite and now the former is again destroying the latter's life) is a meditation on self-described civilized people and their barbarians. When the camera shifts from the video shot in the poor immigrant's apartment to the nice living room of the wealthy writer who is watching the video, there is a clear contrast of social classes. And when the immigrant starts crying on tape, the roles of victim and torturer are swapped; and we understand that is the historical truth of their relationship: it has always been the bourgeois torturing the worker, never the other way around.
Hidden behind the psychological violence of the relationship between the wealthy white man and his mysterious invisible nemesis is the psychological torment of his family: Pierrot doesn't want his mom to hug him, and we never see husband and wife in any intimate affectionate gesture other than exchanging polite considerate words.
A less prominent but indirecly crucial theme is the individual powerless in a state whose police is a cold bureaucracy. The state cannot do anything for the wealthy writer. His wealth is a problem that backfires against him; and then the wealthy writer realizes that nothing can protect him from the consequences of being wealthy and famous.

The first scene shows a house in an affluent street of a big city. A man comes out of it and crosses the street. Then the screen goes in fast forward and then in rewind modes. (May viewers probably tried to adjust their video player or thought the film was defective) A married couple, Georges and Anne, is watching that video. The house is their house. The man in the video is Georges. Anne found it under the porch wrapped in a supermarket bag. There was no message. They are puzzled. They have no idea who could have made it and why send it to them. They sit at the table for dinner in a room that has an entire wall full of books. The husband must be an intellectual. Their teenage son Pierrot arrives.
After a brief scene of Pierrot learning how to swim, we see a scene of the same house at night. The camera doesn't move. It must be a surveillance camera, not held by someone but hanging from a wall. Nothing happens for a while. Then we see the light of a vehicle that is presumably parking across the street and then Georges crosses the street and enters the house. We also see the bleeding face of a child.
The next scene is a group of people filming a television show in Georges' room full of books. The recording ends and Georges is given a message. He walks bastage and we see that we are on a set replicating his living room. He makes a phone call. It's Anne telling him about the new video she found. We see the screen rewinding the mysterious video while Georges and Anne talk over it. They discuss calling the police. They suspect a friend of Pierrot.
Next, a mysterious person calls Anne asking to talk to Georges. Anne understands this is the same person who is stalking them. Meanwhile, Georges found a card at the office that has the same childish drawing that came with the second video. This time they go to the police. When they come out, a black kid on a bike almost runs over Georges. The black kid shouts at Georges, Georges shouts back that the kid was biking in the wrong direction in a one-way street. The kid gets out of the bike and threatens Georges. (It feels like a statement of the arrogance of the children of African immigrants at a time when France was rocked by ethnic riots). Anne separates them and they walk away. (There is more suspense and sense of fear in this encounter with the black kid than in the phone call). In the car Georges utters a few words to the extent that the police cannot do anything and they are left on their own.
Georges drives to Pierrot's school as the children are coming out. Pierrot asks him why he sent a card to the school: it's the same card Georges found at the office, except that this one is signed by Georges and addresses to his son at the school.
When, the following morning, we see Georges and Pierrot coming out of the house, we hesitate to recognize that this time it is not a video watched by Georges and Anne but it is indeed Georges and Pierrot walking to the car. (We are now very aware that there is a camera and that someone is filming the actors as they walk out of the house towards the car, something that normally film viewers don't pay attention to, as they are absorbed in the story).
In the next scene Georges and Anne are having dinner with a few friends in the room with the wall full of books. One tells a funny joke about being the reincarnation of a dog. They also discuss a friend who is a filmmaker, Frederic, who just broke up with his wife and has a new girlfriend. We understand that Georges is a famous writer. Then someone rings the bell. Georges walks outside but there's nobody. He finds another parcel. Anne tells the guests that they are being stalked and Georges plays the video. The video was shot through the windows of a car. The car drives up an unpaved road to an isolated mansion. It's the house where Georges grew up.
Alarmed, Georges finds a pretext to visit his ailing mother. He tells her that everything is fine at home, it's just that he and Anne are so busy. We learn that Anne works for a friend of Georges', a publisher. Then Georges casually asks news about Majid, an Arab kid whom his parents wanted to adopt. His mother has bad memories about that episode and claims she never thinks of it. We sense that Georges have been ransacking his memory trying to figure out who could be the stalker who knows so much about his private life. His mother can read his mind and senses that something is wrong, but Georges denies it. He sleeps over at his mother's house.
The next scene shows an Arab child, presumably Majid, in the farm where Georges grew up, and a child watching him, presumably Georges. Majid takes an axe and tries to kill a chicken. He misses but some blood splashes on his face. Now we know who is the bleeding child of the videos. The chicken rolls around desperate, agonizing. The child Georges stares at the scene, speechless. The child Majid grabs the axe and starts walking towards the child Georges. And then the child Majid strikes... Georges wakes up: he is having a nightmare at his mother's place.
The next video is even more mysterious. It shows a building and then a street as the person making the video walks out. By analyzing the video in slow motion Georges and Anne manage to read the address of the building. Georges decides to investigate alone and tells Anne that he suspects someone. Anne is shocked that he would want to visit the building alone, but even more shocked that he refuses to share the name of the suspect with her. He cannot tell her, which doesn't make sense to her (nor to us). There is a psychological block in Georges' subconscious. Anne makes a scene. They dignified elegant relationship is suddenly breaking apart.
Georges walks into the building and follows the video's path in reverse. He knocks at the door and what appears a mild-mannered middle-aged man opens the door. He is what Georges expected: Majid. Therefore Georges feels certain that Majid is the stalker. But Majid doesn't even seem to understand what this visit is all about and seems puzzled that Georges found out where he lives. Majid lives in a small, poor apartment. He doesn't behave like someone who is capable of blackmailing. He is certainly bitter about something that Georges did to him. Georges briefly justifies himself, he says he had no choice, but mostly wants to keep the moral high ground and play the victim. Majid says he is still grateful to Georges' parents; and swears that he never videos or anything to Georges.
Georges calls his wife and lies to her that he didn't find anybody. Obviously he doesn't want to tell her his past incident with Majid.
After seeing Pierrot win a swimming competition while his parents are watching, we see again the scene of Majid talking to Georges, but from a different angle: someone else made a video of them talking. Georges fell into a trap: one video told him to visit Majid because the stalker was ready to film him there. The video shows us what happened after Georges left the humble room: Majid, sitting at his tiny table, broke down in tears. At this point we see the couple as they are watching the video in their nice living room. Anne says that it goes on for almost one hour. Georges apologizes to her for not telling her the truth. Georges explains that Majid was the son of Algerian immigrants who worked on his parents' farm. They died in ethnic riots, killed by fascist police. His parents looked in vain for their bodies. Eventually they decided to adopt Majid. Georges, only six years old, was jealous and tortured the slightly older Majid.
Anne believes that the video is "authentic", meaning that Majid was really hurt by Georges' words. Later his boss at the tv station tells him that he too has received a copy of the video. Georges realizes that the impression one gets from the video is that Georges, not Majid, is the aggressor. Angry that there might be many copies of that video sent to many people to destroy his career, Georges returns to Majid's apartment, but nobody opens the door.
Meanwhile, his wife is venting her frustration with a friend, Pierre. Back home she realizes that Pierrot is nowhere to be found. They panic and go to the police. Georges leads the cops to Majid's place. The police arrests both Majid and his son, but, without proof, they tell Georges that the two will be released. The police is willing to investigate the child's disappearance, not the videotapes.
The next scene is the house viewed from the usual angle of the videos, but this time it is just showing us that someone is bringing Pierrot home: the kid simply spent a night at a friend's house without phoning his parents. However the kid refuses to talk to his mother and doesn't want her to touch him. It sounds like he saw her with Pierre and is either jealous of disgusted. Nor does he talk to his father when he gets home.
The next scene is an episode of Georges' television show. After a few seconds in which we see the guests discussing a book, we realize that Georges is in a studio editing the taped show. While he is watching the video of the show, and advancing or rewinding it, the phone rings: it's Majid who wants to talk to him. Georges rings the bell, Majid opens the door, Georges walks in, Majid swears he knows nothing about the tapes, then pulls out a knife and slits his own throat splashing blood on the walls. Georges stares at the corpse petrified for a while. Now it appears that it was actually Georges who stalked Majid to the point that the poor man committed suicide.
Back home he recounts the episode to his wife in a dark room. He also tells her the lies that ruined Majid's life: the child Georges told his parents that Majid was coughing blood (a sign of a dangerous disease) and that he killed the bird (when in fact it was Georges who asked him to do it). The consequence was that Majid was sent to an orphanage and never had the education and the nice home that Georges enjoyed. Georges was only six, but his lies changed Majid's life forever. Anne listens like a psychoanalyst. They are so formal with each other that they can't even hug: she just puts a hand on his shoulder.
Now Georges suspects that the videos were made by Majid's son. The boy comes to confront Georges at work. Georges does not want to listen to the boy and simply warns him to desist from sending those videos. The boy swears he has nothing to do with the videos. He has come to remind Georges of how he ruined his father's life, from the orphanage to the suicide. Georges is clearly feeling guilty, even if he says the opposite. And between the two the boy behaves like the more civilized.
Georges goes home, closes the curtains of his bedroom and goes to bed. In his dreams he re-lives the moment when the child Majid left the house, pushed into a car while he was screaming and after trying to escape.
While the titles are rolling on the screen, the camera focuses on the gate of Pierrot's school as the children are coming out. We see Pierrot and Majid's son chatting, possibly implying that they were accomplices and that Georges' suspicion was correct.
(Translation by/ Tradotto da Francesco Romano Spanò )

Cache`/ Hidden (2005) è, prima di tutto, un potente esperimento psicologico su come percepiamo i film. Dopo che la prima scena ci ha ingannati facendoci credere che il nostro videoregistratore fosse rotto, non ci fidiamo più di nulla. Ogni scena potrebbe essere un video all’interno del film. Le scene-video ci mostrano qualcosa che è successa ma che il “film” non ci sta dicendo (tranne il fatto che ce la sta mostrando nel video). Dal momento che l’unico modo di distinguere un video da un non video è se la videocamera sia ferma o meno, stiamo molto attenti a come questa si muove, invece di essere assorbiti nella storia. Haneke enfatizza il contrasto tra i contenuti irrilevanti dei video (perlopiù, solo una casa e qualcuno che esce di casa) e le sue implicazioni (qualcuno ti sta osservando, e all’improvviso né tu né i tuoi cari siete più al sicuro). La camera non “dice” mai nulla, semplicemente osserva immobile: Haneke ci fa capire quanto sia potente lo sguardo fisso immobile, lo stare fermi a guardare.
Certo, in questo film ricco di suspence qualcuno potrebbe vederci l’intreccio tradizionale di un thriller: il passato torna a tormentarti quando meno te lo aspetti e scombina una vita che sembrava così felicemente routinaria da essere quasi noiosa. Il carnefice si trasforma nella vittima.
Ma, in generale, il film è profondamente radicato in un discorso socio-politico.
Il tema principale è la razza in natura. Haneke architetta il conflitto razziale in un modo tale da implicarne la tensione etnica, ma, allo stesso tempo, la trascende. Il fatto che l’uomo bianco non voglia rivelare il suo passato alla moglie sta a significare che egli, borghese bianco purosangue privilegiato, si è fatto un esame di coscienza. Il fatto che lo scrittore europeo accusi il lavoratore africano di torturarlo (quando da bambini succedeva l’esatto opposto, e perdipiù, adesso, il primo sta di nuovo distruggendo la vita del secondo) è una meditazione su come la gente civilizzata descriva sé stessa e le proprie barbarie. Quando l’inquadratura della videocamera si sposta dall’appartamento del povero immigrato al bel salotto dello scrittore benestante, si nota una certa differenza di classe sociale. E quando, in video, l’immigrato comincia a piangere, i ruoli di vittima e carnefice si ribaltano; e capiamo che questa è la verità storica della loro relazione: è sempre stato il borghese a torturare il lavoratore, mai il contrario.
Nascosta dietro la violenza psicologica della relazione tra l’uomo benestante e il suo nemico invisibile, c’è il tormento psicologico della sua famiglia: Pierrot non vuole che sua mamma lo abbracci, e non vediamo mai moglie e marito scambiarsi carezze, ma solo parole posate e misurate.
Un tema meno prominente ma indirettamente cruciale è l’impotenza individuale in uno stato la cui polizia è solo una fredda burocrazia. Lo stato non può far nulla per lo scrittore benestante. Il suo essere benestante è un problema che gli si ritorce contro; e poi, lo scrittore benestante si rende conto che nessuno può proteggerlo dalle conseguenze di essere ricco e famoso.

La prima scena mostra una casa in una strada affollata di una grande città. Un uomo esce fuori di casa e attraversa la strada. Dopodiché lo schermo va avanti veloce e dopo torna indietro (si riavvolge). (forse gli spettatori hanno cercato di aggiustare il videoregistratore pensando fosse rotto). Una coppia di sposi, Georges e Anne, sta guardando quel video, la casa è la loro. L’uomo nel video è Georges. Anne lo trova sotto lo zerbino avvolto in una busta del supermercato. Non c’era nessun messaggio. Sono perplessi. Non hanno idea di chi lo abbia fatto o mandato. Si siedono a tavola per cena in una stanza che ha una parete piena di libri. Il marito dev’essere un intellettuale. Arriva il loro figlio adolescente Pierrot.
Dopo una breve scena in cui Pierrot impara a nuotare, vediamo una scena della stessa casa di notte. La videocamera non si muove, dev’essere una telecamera di sorveglianza, non tenuta da qualcuno ma appesa ad un muro. Per un po’ non succede nulla. Dopodiché vediamo la luce di un veicolo, probabilmente intento a parcheggiare per strada, e poi Georges attraversa la strada ed entra in casa. Vediamo anche il volto sanguinante di un bambino.
Nella scena seguente c’è un gruppo di persone che gira uno show televisivo nella stanza piena di libri di Georges. Le registrazioni terminano e Georges riceve un messaggio. Arriva al backstage e si vede poi che siamo su un set replica del suo salotto. Fa una telefonata. È Anne, che lo informa che ha trovato una nuova videocassetta. Vediamo il misterioso video riavvolgersi mentre Georges e Anne ne discutono. Pensano di chiamare la polizia. Sospettano di un amico di Pierrot.
Poi, un misterioso sconosciuto chiama Anne chiedendole di parlare con George. Anne capisce che si tratta della stessa persona delle videocassette. Nel mentre, Georges trova un foglietto in ufficio con lo stesso disegnino ricevuto insieme alla seconda cassetta. A questo punto, decidono di andare alla polizia. Quando escono, un ragazzino nero in bicicletta quasi non lo mette sotto. Il ragazzino nero insulta Georges, Georges gli risponde che stava andando nel verso sbagliato perché la strada finiva con un vicolo cieco. Il ragazzino scende dalla bici e minaccia Georges. (Haneke qui sembra riferirsi all’arroganza dei figli degli immigrati africani all’epoca in cui la Francia fu scossa dalle rivolte etniche). Anne li separa ed entrambi si allontanano. (c’è più tensione e senso di paura in questo scontro con il bambino che nella telefonata di prima). In macchina, Georges farfuglia qualche parola sul fatto che la polizia non possa far nulla e che li abbiano lasciati soli a sé stessi.
Georges guida fino alla scuola di Pierrot mentre i ragazzini stanno uscendo. Pierrot gli chiede come mai abbia mandato un foglietto alla scuola: è lo stesso che Georges ha trovato in ufficio, con la differenza che questo è firmato da Georges e indirizzato alla scuola di suo figlio.
Quando, il mattino seguente, vediamo Georges e Pierrot uscire di casa, facciamo fatica a pensare che stavolta non sia un video guardato da Georges ed Anne, ma invece sono Georges e Pierrot che vanno alla macchina. (Non siamo molto sicuri che sia solo una telecamera che filma gli attori che escono di casa e si incamminano alla macchina, qualcosa in cui lo spettatore di solito non presta molta attenzione, perché sono assorbiti nella storia).
Nella scena seguente, Georges e Anne stanno cenando con degli amici nella stanza con la parete piena di libri. Uno di loro racconta una barzelletta sull’essere la reincarnazione di un cane. Parlano anche di un amico regista, Frederic, che si è appena separato da sua moglie e ha una nuova fidanzata. Capiamo che Georges è uno scrittore famoso. Dopodiché qualcuno suona alla porta. Georges va a vedere chi sia ma non c’è nessuno, e trova un altro pacco. Anne informa gli ospiti che qualcuno li sta perseguitando e George fa partire il video. Il video è stato girato dal finestrino di un’automobile. L’automobile guida su una strada sterrata fino ad una casa isolata. È la casa in cui Georges è cresciuto.
Allarmato, Georges trova un pretesto per andare a trovare sua madre malata. Lui le dice che a casa va tutto bene e che lui ed Anne sono molto occupati. Scopriamo che Anne lavora per un amico di Georges, un editore. Dopo, Georges chiede a caso notizie su un certo Majid, un bambino arabo che i suoi genitori volevano adottare. Sua madre ha brutti ricordi di quell’episodio e afferma di non pensarci mai. Si vede che Georges ha rovistato tra i suoi ricordi per capire chi lo stia perseguitando. Lo stalker deve anche sapere molto sulla sua vita privata. La madre gli legge nel pensiero e intuisce ci sia qualcosa che non va, ma Georges nega. Georges si addormenta a casa della madre.
Nella scena successiva vediamo un bambino arabo, probabilmente Majid, nella fattoria in cui Georges è cresciuto, ed un altro bambino che lo fissa, probabilmente Georges. Majid prende un’ascia e tenta di uccidere un pollo. Manca il colpo ma un po’ di sangue gli schizza in faccia. Ora sappiamo chi sia il bimbo sanguinante dei video. Il pollo rotola avanti e indietro agonizzante. Il piccolo Georges fissa la scena, senza parlare. Il piccolo Majid afferra l’ascia e comincia a camminare verso il piccolo Georges. Poi, il piccolo Majid colpisce... e Georges si sveglia: ha avuto un incubo a casa di sua madre.
Il prossimo video è ancora più misterioso. Mostra un palazzo e poi una strada non appena la persona che sta filmando cammina fuori dal palazzo. Analizzando il video a rallentatore, Georges ed Anne riescono a leggere l’indirizzo del palazzo. Georges decide di investigare da solo e dice ad Anne di avere un sospetto. Anne è sconvolta dal fatto che Georges voglia andare al palazzo da solo, ma è ancora più sconvolta dal fatto che lui non voglia dirle di chi sospetta. Non può dirglielo, il che non ha senso, né per lei e né per noi. C’è un blocco psicologico nel subconscio di Georges. Anne gli fa una scenata. Il loro rapporto elegante e degno sta improvvisamente andando in frantumi.
Georges arriva all’edificio e ripercorre la strada del video al contrario. Bussa alla porta e gli apre un uomo di mezza età dai modi miti. Era quello che Georges si aspettava di trovare: Majid. Quindi, Georges è sicuro che Majid sia lo stalker. Ma Majid sembra non capire perché Georges gli abbia fatto visita e appare sconvolto che Georges abbia scoperto dove vive. Majid vive in un appartamento piccolo e spoglio. Si comporta come qualcuno incapace di ricatti. Sembra sicuramente risentito di qualcosa che Georges gli ha fatto. George cerca di giustificarsi dicendo di non aver avuto scelta, ma dopo si difende interpretando il ruolo della vittima. Majid dice di essere ancora grato ai genitori di Georges; e giura di non averlo mai filmato o altro.
Georges chiama la moglie e le mente dicendole che in casa non ci fosse nessuno. Ovviamente non voleva dirle nulla sul suo vecchio incidente con Majid.
Dopo aver visto Pierrot vincere una gara di nuoto mentre i suoi genitori vi assistono, vediamo di nuovo la scena di Majid mentre parla con Georges, ma stavolta da una prospettiva diversa: qualcun altro ha fatto un video mentre parlavano. Georges è caduto in una trappola: un video lo ha indotto a far visita Majid perché lo stalker era già lì pronto a filmarlo. Il video ci mostra cosa è avvenuto dopo che Georges è uscito dall’umile dimora di Majid: Majid, seduto al suo piccolo tavolo, singhiozzante in lacrime. A questo punto, vediamo la coppia guardare il video nel loro bel salotto. Anne dice che va avanti per almeno un’ora. Georges si scusa per avergli mentito. Le spiega che Majid era il figlio di immigrati algerini che lavoravano alla fattoria dei suoi genitori. Loro sono morti in una rivolta razziale, uccisi da dei poliziotti fascisti. I suoi genitori hanno cercato invano i corpi. Allora, decisero di adottare Majid, Georges, che aveva solo sei anni, era geloso e torturava Majid, che era appena appena più grande.
Anne crede che il video sia "autentico", vale a dire che pensa che Majid fosse veramente ferito dalle parole di Georges. Più tardi, il suo capo alla stazione televisiva gli dice che anche lui ha ricevuto una copia del video. Georges capisce che l’impressione che si ha vedendo il video sia che sia lui l’aggressore, non Majid. Arrabbiato del fatto che possano esserci tante copie del video in giro mandate a tante persone in modo da distruggere la sua carriera, Georges torna a casa di Majid, ma nessuno gli apre.
nel mentre, sua moglie sfoga la sua frustrazione con un amico, Pierre. Di ritorno a casa capisce che Pierrot è scomparso. Vanno nel panico ed alla polizia. Georges porta i poliziotti a casa di Majid. La polizia arresta sia Majid che suo figlio, ma dicono a Georges che senza prove, i due sarebbero stati presto rilasciati. La polizia investiga sulla scomparsa del ragazzino e non sui video.
Nella scena seguente, c’è la casa vista dalla solita prospettiva delle videocassette, ma adesso ci mostra che qualcuno sta riportando a casa Pierrot: il ragazzino ha semplicemente passato la notte da un amico senza avvertire i genitori. Comunque, si rifiuta di rivolgere la parola a sua madre e non vuole essere toccato. Sembra che abbia visto lei e Pierre insieme e che fosse geloso e disgustato. Non parla nemmeno con suo padre una volta tornato a casa.
Nella scena seguente, vediamo un episodio dello show di Georges. Dopo qualche secondo in cui vediamo gli ospiti discutere di un libro, scopriamo che Georges è in una sala montaggio mentre edita il girato. Mentre sta editando, portando la registrazione avanti e indietro, squilla il telefono: è Majid e vuole parlargli. Georges suona il campanello, Majid apre la porta e Georges entra, e Majid gli giura che non sa nulla delle videocassette, tira fuori un coltello, se lo punta al collo e si taglia la gola, facendo schizzare tutto il sangue sulle pareti. Georges fissa il corpo per un po’, pietrificato. Ora è chiaro che è stato Georges a perseguitare Majid, al punto tale da spingere il pover’uomo a suicidarsi.
Tornato a casa, Georges racconta l’episodio alla moglie in una camera scura. Lui le racconta anche le menzogne che hanno rovinato la vita di Majid: il piccolo Georges disse ai suoi genitori che Majid stava tossendo sangue (sintomo di una brutta malattia) e che aveva ucciso il pollo (quando, in realtà, fu Georges a chiedergli di farlo). La conseguenza fu che Majid fu mandato in un orfanotrofio e non ebbe la stessa educazione e la bella casa che ha avuto Georges. Georges aveva solo sei anni, ma le sue bugie hanno rovinato per sempre la vita di Majid. Anne lo ascolta come se fosse la sua psicanalista. Sono talmente formali che non si danno nemmeno un abbraccio: lei gli mette solo una mano sulla spalla.
Ora, Georges sospetta che i video siano stati girati dal figlio di Majid. Il ragazzo si presenta al lavoro di Georges per affrontarlo. Georges si rifiuta di ascoltarlo e lo intima solo di smettere di mandare video a casa sua. Il ragazzo giura di non avere nulla a che fare con i video. È venuto solo per ricordare a Georges di come avesse rovinato la vita del padre, dall’orfanotrofio fino al suicidio. Si vede che Georges si senta in colpa, anche se non lo ammette. E, tra i due, il ragazzo è quello che si comporta più civilmente.
Georges torna a casa, chiude le tende della sua camera da letto e va a dormire. Nei suoi sogni, rivive il momento in cui il piccolo Majid fu cacciato di casa, spinto in una macchina mentre gridava e cercava di fuggire. Mentre scorrono i titoli di coda, la camera è fissa sul portone della scuola di Pierrot mentre i bambini stanno uscendo. Vediamo Pierrot ed il figlio di Majid discutere: è possibile che fossero complici e che il sospetto di Georges fosse corretto.

The black and white historical drama Das Weisse Band/ White Ribbon (2009) is structured like a a mystery novel: a number of strange events take place in a rural village (usually the stereotypical idyllic plaec). The "whodoneit", however, is left unfinished: nobody will ever find out for sure who committed them. There are two evil forces at play within this idyllic landscape. On one hand are the adult men, each one representing a different facet of power: the secular, the religious, the patriarchal, the scientific, etc. The only one that comes out unblemished from all these events is the schoolteacher: education. He is the only one who is truly honest, and is the only one who finds a paradisiac reward (the wonderful nanny). All the other adult men are perverted to some extent. On the other hand is another evil force, and perhaps a more disturbing one: their children (male and female). In fact, by the end they have become the main suspects in the unsolved murder mystery. The children of the stern pastor are aspiring sociopaths. The others follow them like zombies. The children represent the future of the nation, and this nation is Germany before World War I. They will become adults in 20 years (Nazist era). Despite its obsession with propriety and Christian Berger's iconic cinematography, the film feels like a pamphlet about terror: how it originates and how it expresses itself, and, ultimately, how terrorism is very much embedded into human nature. The story of the village, set in a small rural village on the eve of World War I, is narrated by an old man. One day the doctor has an accident: someone has strung a wire at a tree in front of his house and the doctor's horse tripped on it. The doctor is taken to the hospital. He lives with his affectionate teenage daughter Anni and his little son, helped by the neighbor, a midwife, since his wife died giving birth to that boy. A wealthy lady, the baroness, is practising at the piano and is annoyed her little son who is distracting her. A stern father, the village's pastor, punishes his four children who were momentarily lost in town, causing him and their mother a great deal of anxiety. The police officer would like to investigate the accident but the wire has disappeared. A woman is killed in a freak accident inside a barn owned by the baron of the county. Her eldest son is angry and tries to find out who is responsible. The narrator reveals himself to be the schoolteacher and, as a young man, becomes a character in the story when he goes fishing and sees the rebellious son of the stern pastor, Martin, balance himself dangerously on the handrail of a bridge. The child begs him not to tell the pastor. On the way home the schoolteacher meets for the first time the new nanny, Eva, of the baron's twins. Anni is having supper with her little brother and he starts asking questions about death, puzzled that everybody has to die, even her, even him; and that is when he suddenly realizes that his own mother is dead. The rebellious Martin is disappointed when he is told that her mother had another son. During the harvest festival Max, the son of the dead woman, takes his revenge on the baron by vandalizing an entire field of cabbages. His father is terrified by the potential consequences: he has a large family to feed. The schoolteacher finally meets Eva again and dances with her. By the end of the festival, the baron discovers that his son Sigi is missing. After a long search, the child is found, bleeding: he was beaten with a cane by an unknown person. The following day in church the baron threatens the whole town. We learn that Max confessed vandalizing the cabbages but he has a strong alibi. Someone else did it. And the baron reminds the audience that the doctor was also the victim of unknown criminals. The baron is the employer of half the village. That night Eva and the tutor Huber are fired. She is desperate becase she has nowhere to go and her family needs her salary, and she asks the schoolteacher for help. He borrows a carriage and rides her to her home village. Max released from prison, but his father doesn't forgive him: the family has nothing to eat. The doctor returns home after his four-year old son ran away from home in a heroic attempt to reach the hospital. Worried that his son's health is mysteriously deteriorating, and suspecting that this is due to masturbation, tells him of another boy who indulged in that pastime and died of it. The boy confesses that indeed he masturbates. The doctor has sex with his neighbor the midwife. On a very cold winter day the schoolteacher walks all the way to Eva's village to propose. He meets her parents and her seven siblings. Her father complains that he is almost twice her age, and prefers that her daughter takes another job and gets to meet more people before committing to the first suitor. At night Martin sees a fire but he can't get up because the pastor is tying his hands at night to make sure the boy doesn't masturbate. Outside the adults are already busy trying to put off the fire: someone has set fire to the barn. The doctor brutally tells the midwife that she is old, ugly and smells bad, and that he is disgusted by her (all of this while she was masturbating him). He tells her that, after losing his wife, he simply wanted to have sex with someone, and the brothel was too far. She retorts that she has seen him touch his own daughter Anni and before that he had abused his wife too. The midwife has spent all those years since her death helping him raise his children and now he treats like a cheap whore. And she is the single mother of a retarded boy. Annoyed by her litany, the doctor simply tells her to go away and kill herself. The pastor finally forgives Martin, but eldest daughter Klara is the real troublemaker. Klara takes a pair of scissors and kills a bird that her father keeps in a cage in his office, and then leaves it on his desk. Anni wanders around the house in the dark looking for his sister and catches his father taking her virginity on the examination table. After several months the schoolteacher visits Eva again, and she kisses him. The daughter of the steward, Erna, told the schoolteacher that sometimes her dreams come true, and she has just dreamed that something terrible will happen to the midwife's retarded son Karli. When someone does kidnap and torture the poor child, the police interrogate Erna and terrorizes her, but the girl simply keeps crying and protesting her innocence. The pastor's younger son has saved a bird that was wounded. When the bird recovers, the little child donates it to his father to replace the one that Karla murdered. The steward has to punish his boy for stealing Sigi's whistle. It is the last straw for the baroness, who has been tired of life in that region for a long time. She communicates to the baron that she is in love with an Italian banker and is determined to leave him. The steward interrupts them with the news that archduke Ferdinand of Austria has been assassinated, the beginning of World War I. The schoolteacher decides to borrow the baron's bicycle and visit Eva, but the midwife, in a frantic state, begs him to let her ride to town: she claims that she knows who committed all those crimes but she is willing to tell only the police. The schoolteacher lets her take the bicycle but then walks to her house to see how Karli is doing: the house is locked, a rarity in that town, and the children, led by Klara, are trying to peep inside. The schoolteacher sends them away and then walks to the doctor's house to ask for news about Karli: the doctor has left town with his children without telling anyone. The schoolteacher walks to the pastor's house and demands to talk to Klara and Martin. The schoolteacher suspects that the children are behind all the crimes: the wire that caused the doctor's accident, the fire that destroyed the barn the kidnapping of Sigi, the torture of Karli. Even the fact that Erna knew what was going to happen to Karli points at the children planning it and Erna learning it from them. He interrogates in vain Klara and Martin. When the stern pastor arrives and hears of the schoolteacher's accusations, instead of questioning his children, he attacks the honest man and threatens him of massive retaliation should he ever mention his suspicions again. He calls him a sick mind and dismisses him. The midwife never comes back and her house is found empty: she has taken Karli with her. Gossip spreads in town that Karli could be the doctor's illegitimate son, and that the doctor's wife may have been murdered by the doctor and his lover. But war has broken out in Europe, the investigation is never completed, and the schoolteacher moves to another town (and marries Eva).

L'Amour (2012) is a rather mediocre and mostly linear film that Haneke tries to turn into something more by a narrative trick towards the very end. The film depicts an excruciating agony leaving the suspicion that it could all be just a fantasy of an old man who is losing his mind.

The first scene shows the police breaking into an apartment and finding the decomposing body of an elderly woman neatly composed in her bed.
Most of the film is a flashback showing how she got there. We first meet the elderly couple of Anne and Georges at the concert hall. We only see the audience, not the performer, but later we learn that the pianist is their former pupil, now a rising star of classical music. At home they find that someone has tried to break into their apartment. She is a bit upset but he reassures her. While they are having dinner as usual, suddenly Anne remains petrified, not responding to any word or gesture of her husband's. He is about to go out and look for help when he hears that she turns off the water that he had left running. He walks back into the kitchen and she's behaving absolutely normal. She doesn't remember anything wrong. He is terrified and wants to call the doctor. We are left uncertain about who is sick: did she really freeze or did he imagine the whole thing?
Her daughter Eva comes to visit and tells her father that her British husband Geoff, also a classical music performer, is having affairs with other women. Her 26-year old son is independent. Her father tells her that her mother had an operation and the operation failed leaving Anne partially paralyzed. She comes back in a wheelchair. She makes Georges pledge that he will never send her back to the hospital. Georges comes back disturbed from a bizarre funeral. Anne tells him that she doesn't want to live any longer because she realizes that it will only get worse. Her body is progressively getting more and more paralyzed. Their pupil Alexandre pays a visit and is shocked to find Anne in a wheelchair.
Someone rings the bell but then disappears and Georges finds himself roaming flooded corridors... only to wake up in the middle of the night: it was a nightmare.
A text message announces that Anne will come to visit them with her husband.
Alexandre sends his CD, but Anne does not want to listen to it. She wants to see the photo album. One day she pees on herself. She is humiliated. When Eva and Geoff come, Anne cannot utter sensible words anymore. Eva doesn't understand her own mom and is devastated. Georges tells them that he has consulted two specialists and there is nothing to do. He continues heroically to take care of her by himself but eventually has to hire a nurse. Now she is permanently in bed and calls her mom or simply screams "pain!" Anne refuses to open her mouth to be fed: obviously she wants to die. When Eva comes to visit next, her father tries to keep her from seeing her mother: he senses that Anne would not want to be seen like that. He has also taken the habit not to pick up the phone, as if it were pointless to give news of a worsening illness. Suddenly, alone with Anne, Georges finds the courage to suffocate her with a pillow. He then sets out to write a lengthy letter, distracted only by a bird that flies into the apartment from a window and that he carefully captures but then lets go.
Next he is lying in bed. His wife is washing the dishes in the kitchen, as if the whole episode did not happen and they had just finished dinner (but we know it really happened because of the first scene). They walk out together, presumably to another performance.
Eva enters the apartment. She has the keys. There is nobody inside. (Presumably this is after the police came and took the body out).

Happy End (2017)

(Translation by/ Tradotto da Francesco Romano Spanò )

Il dramma storico in bianco e nero Das Weisse Band/ White Ribbon (2009) è strutturato come un romanzo del mistero: una serie di strani eventi accadono in un villaggio rurale (il solito, stereotipico posto idilliaco). Il "whodoneit" (“chi è stato”), comunque, rimane irrisolto: nessuno scoprirà mai con sicurezza chi sia stato a commettere questi strani misfatti. Ci sono due forze maligne in gioco in questo idillio. Da un lato, ci sono gli uomini adulti. Ciascuno rappresenta una facciata diversa del potere: il secolare, il religioso, il patriarca, lo scienziato, e così via. L’unica persona pulita è l’insegnante: educazione. Lui è l’unico davvero onesto, e l’unico a ricevere una ricompensa paradisiaca (una fantastica bambinaia). Gli altri adulti sono, in qualche modo, tutti pervertiti. Dall’altro lato, c’è un’altra forza malvagia, e forse ancora più disturbante: i loro figli (maschi e femmine). Infatti, verso la fine, diventano i principali sospettati dell’omicidio irrisolto. I figli del pastore severo sono aspiranti sociopatici. Gli altri li seguono come zombie. I bambini rappresentano il futuro della nazione, e questa nazione è la Germania prima della I guerra mondiale. Diventeranno adulti in vent’anni (nel periodo nazista). Nonostante la sua ossessione per la proprietà e l’iconica fotografica di Christian Berger, il film sembra un pamphlet sul terrore: come nasce e come si esprime, e, in definitiva, come il terrorismo sia fortemente radicato nella natura umana.

La storia del villaggio, ambientata in un piccolo villaggio rurale alla vigilia della I guerra mondiale, è narrata da un uomo anziano. Un giorno, il dottore ha un incidente: qualcuno ha teso un filo agli estremi di un albero davanti casa del dottore ed il suo cavallo ci è inciampato. Il dottore viene portato all’ospedale. Lui vive con la sua amorevole figlia adolescente Anni e il figlio piccolo, aiutato da una sua vicina, una balia, dal momento che sua moglie è morta dando alla luce quel ragazzo. Una donna in salute, baronessa, si sta esercitando al piano ed è infastidita da suo figlio, che la sta distraendo. Un padre severo, il pastore del villaggio, punisce i suoi figli che si erano momentaneamente persi in città, causando a lei e a sua moglie molta ansia. Il poliziotto vorrebbe indagare sull’incidente ma il filo è sparito. Una donna muore in un incidente assurdo in una stalla di proprietà del barone del villaggio. Il suo figlio più grande è arrabbiato e tenta di scoprire chi sia il responsabile. Il narratore si rivela essere l’insegnante della scuola, ed entra in scena, da giovane, quando va a pescare e vede il figlio ribelle del rigido pastore, Martin, tenersi instabile in equilibrio sul parapetto di un ponte. Il ragazzino implora l’insegnate di non dirlo a suo padre. Sulla strada di casa l’insegnante incontra per la prima volta la nuova balia, Eva, una dei gemelli del barone. Anni sta bevendo la zuppa con il suo fratellino, che comincia a farle domande sulla mmorte, sconcertato dal fatto che tutti debbano morire, persino lei, persino lui stesso; ed è proprio iin quel momento che scopre improvvisamente che la sua stessa madre è morta. Il ribelle Martin rimane deluso quando gli dicono che sua madre aveva un altro figlio. durante la festa del raccolto Max, il figlio della donna morta, si vendica del barone distruggendogli un intero campo di cavoli. Suo padre è terrorizzato dalle potenziali onsegunze di questo gesto: ha una grande famiglia da sfamare. L’insegnante finalmente si rincontra con la balia ballano insieme. Al termine dei festeggiamenti, il barone scopre che suo figlio Sigi non si trova. Dopo una lunga ricerca, il bambino viene ritrovato sanguinante: è stato colpito con un bastone da uno sconosciuto. Il giorno dopo, in chiesa, il barone minaccia tuttta la città. Scopriamo che Mac ha confessato l’atto vandalico del campo di cavoli, ma ha un alibi solido. È stato qualcun altro. Ed il barone ricorda a tutti che anche il dottore era stato vittima di criminali ancor senza un volto. Il barone dà lavoro a metà del villaggio. Quella notte, Eva ed il tutore Huber vengono licenziati. Lei è disperata perché non sa dove andare e la sua famiglia aveva bisogno di quei soldi, e chiede aiuto all’insegnante. Noleggia un carro e la accompagna nel villaggio dove vive. Max viene rilasciato di prigione, ma suo padre non lo perdona: la famiglia non ha nulla da mangiare. Il dottore torna a casa dopo che suo figlio di sei anni era scappato di casa nel tentativo eroico di raggiungere il padre all’ospedale. Preoccupato che la salute di suo figlio stia misteriosamente peggiorando, e che ciò sia dovuto alla masturbazione, gli racconta di un altro ragazzo è morto perché si masturbava troppo. Il ragazzo gli confessa che si masturba. Il dottore fa sesso con la sua vicina balia. In un giorno molto freddo d’inverno, l’insegnante cammina fino al villaggiodi Eva per chiederle di sposarlo. Incontra i suoi genitori ed i suoi sette fratelli e sorelle. Il padre obietta che lui ha praticamente il doppio della sua età, e preferisce che sua figlia trovi un altro lavoro e che incontri più gente prima di sposarsi col suo primo spasimante. Nella notte, Martin vede un fuoco ma non riesce ad alzarsi perché suo padre gli ha legato le mani per essere sicuro che non si masturbasse. Fuori, gli adulti sono già impegnati a spegnere il fuoco: qualcuno ha dato fuoco alla stalla. Il dottore dice brutalmente alla balia che è vecchia, brutta e puzza, e che ne è disgustato (questo mentre lei lo sta masturbando). Lui le dice che, dopo aver perso sua moglie, voleva solo qualcuna con cui fare sesso, ed il bordello era troppo lontano. Lei replica che lo ha visto abusare della sua stessa figlia Anni, e prima di lei aveva abusato anche di sua moglie. Da quando è morta la moglie, la balia ha passato tutti questi anni aiutandolo a crescere i suoi figli e adesso lui la tratta come una sgualdrina da quattro soldi. Ed è anche la madre sola di un bambino ritardato. Annoiato dalla sua tiritera, il dottore gli dice semplicemente andare via e di ammazzarsi. Il pastore, finalmente, perdona Martin, ma è la sua figlia più grande Klara quella che combina i guai. Klara prende un paio di forbici e uccide il canarino che suo padre tiene in una gabbia nel suo ufficio, e dopo glielo lascia sul tavolo. Anni gira per casa nel buio cercando sua sorella e becca suo padre mentre le toglie la verginità sul lettino da visita. Dopo qualche mese, l’insegnate va di nuovo a trovare Eva, e lei lo bacia. La figlia del fattore, Erna, dice che qualche volta i suoi sogni diventano reali, ed ha appena sognato che qualcosa di terribile sarebbe successo al figlio ritardato della balia, Karli. Quando qualcuno rapisce e tortura il povero bambino, la polizia interroga e la terrorizza, ma la ragazza semplicemente scoppia a piangere e proclama la propria innocenza. Il figlio più piccolo del pastore ha salvato un uccellino che era stato ferito. Quando si riprende, il bambino lo dona al padre per rimpiazzare quello che aveva ucciso Karla. Il fattore è costretto a punire suo figlio per aver rubato il fischietto di Sigi.  Per la baronessa è l’ultima goccia, che è stufa ormai da tempo di vivere in quella regione. Lei dice a suo marito di essere innamorata di un bancario italiano e che ha intenzione di lasciarlo. Il fattore li interrompe, con una notizia dell’arciduca Ferdinando d’Austria è stato assassinato: è scoppiata la I guerra mondiale. L’insegnante decide di prendere in prestito la bicicletta del barone e di visitare Eva, ma la bambinaia, in preda all’agitazione, lo prega di prestarle la bicicletta per andare in città. Dice di sapere chi sia il colpevole dei crimini ed è intenzionata ad andare alla polizia. L’insegnante le dà la bicicletta ma poi entra in casa sua per vedere che sta facendo Karli: la casa è chiusa a chiave, cosa insolita in quel paese. I bambini, capitanati da Klara, stanno cercando di sbirciare all’interno. L’insegnante li manda via e dopo entra a casa del dottore per chiedere di Karli: il dottore ha lasciato il paese senza dire niente a nessuno. L’insegnante cammina fino alla casa del pastore per chiedere di parlare con Klara e Martin. L’insegnante sospetta che i bambini siano coinvolti nei crimini: il filo che ha causato l’incidente del dottore, l’incendio che ha bruciato la stalla, il rapimento di Sigi, la tortura di Karli. Anche il fatto che Erna sapeva cosa sarebbe successo a Karli poteva significare che i bambini lo stessero pianificando ed Erna l’abbia sentito da loro. In vano, cerca di interrogare Klara e Martin. Quando il rigido pastore arriva e sente le accuse dell’insegnante, invece di domandare ai suoi figli, attacca l’uomo onesto e lo minaccia di gravi ripercussioni se avesse di nuovo fatto certe accuse. La balia non tornerà mai più a casa e casa sua era vuota: ha preso Karli con sé. Le voci si spargono in città: qualcuno pensa che Karli possa essere il figlio illegittimo del dottore, e quindi la moglie del dottore possa essere stata uccisa dal marito e la sua amante. Ma la guerra è arrivata in Europa, l’investigazione non verrà mai completata e l’insegnante si trasferisce in un’altra città (e sposa Eva).

L'Amour (2012) è un film piuttosto mediocre e abbastanza lineare, a cui Haneke cerca di rimediare, nel finale, con un trucco narrativo. Il film dipinge una straziante agonia, lasciandoci col dubbio che sia tutta una fantasia di un anziano che sta perdendo la testa.

La prima scena mostra la polizia che fa irruzione in una casa, e trova i copi in decomposizione di una donna anziana ben vestita nel suo letto.
Gran parte del film è un flashback che ci mostra come ci è arrivata lì. Prima, incontriamo la coppia anziana di Anne e Georges in una sala da concerto. Vediamo solo il pubblico, non il musicista, ma scopriamo che il pianista è un loro vecchio pupillo, adesso un astro nascente della musica classica. A casa, scoprono che qualcuno ha cercato di entrare nell’appartamento. Lei è un po’ preoccupata ma lui la rassicura. Mentre stanno cenando come sempre, all’improvviso Anne rimane pietrificata, senza rispondere a nessuno delle parole o dei gesti del marito. Mentre sta per andar fuori a chiedere aiuto, lei chiude l’acqua che lui aveva lasciato scorrere aperta. Lui torna in cucina e lei si comporta in modo assoltamente normale. Non si ricorda nulla che non andasse. Lui è terrorizzato e vuole chiamare il dottore. Ci lasciano col dubbio su chi sia malato: lei è veramente rimasta pietrificata o è lui che si è immaginato tutto?
Sua figlia Eva gli fa visita e dice a suo padre che suo marito inglese, Geoff, anche lui un musicista classico, ha relazioni con altre donne. Suo figlio di 26 anni è indipendente. Suo padre le dice che su madre ha appena fatto un’operazione e che è andata male, lasciando Anne parzialmente paralizzata. Torna su una sedia a rotelle. Lei ha fatto promettere a Georges che non sarebbero più ritornati in ospedale. Georges torna disturbato da un bizzarro funerale. Anne gli dice di non voler più vivere perché sa che la sua situazione va solo peggiorare. Il suo corpo si paralizza ogni giorno di più. Il loro pupillo Alexandre va a fargli visita e rimane scioccato nel vedere Anne su una sedia a rotelle. Qualcuno suona alla porta e dopo scompare e Georges si ritrova ad annaspare in corridoi allagati… solo per svegliarsi nel bel mezzo della notte: ha avuto un incubo. Un messaggio annuncia che Anne andrà a trovarli col marito.
Alexandre gli manda il suo CD, ma Anne non vuole ascoltarlo, piuttosto vuole vedere la copertina. Un giorno si fa la pipì sotto. È umiliata. Quando Eva e Geoff arrivano, non riescono a spiccicare più neanche una parola di conforto. Eva non capisce sua madre ed è devastata. Georges dice loro che ha consultato due specialisti e non c’è nulla da fare. Continua a prendersi cura eroicamente da solo di lei ma eventualmente dovrà assumere un’infermiera. Ora lei è costretta sempre a letto e o chiama sua madre o semplicemente grida “dolore!” Anne rifiuta di aprire la bocca per essere nutrita: evidentemente, vuole morire. Quando Eva torna a fargli visita, Georges non vuole farle vedere sua madre: sente che Anne non vorrebbe essere vista in questo stato. Ha preso anche l’abitudine di non rispondere al telefono, come se fosse inutile ricevere notizie di una malattia che può solo che peggiorare. All’improvviso, da solo con Anne, George trova il coraggio di soffocarla col cuscino. Dopodiché scrive una lunga lettera, distratto solo da un uccellino che entra nell’appartamento, che lui cattura ma che poi lascia andare.
Dopo è steso a letto. Sua moglie sta lavando i piatti in cucina, come se l’intero episodio non fosse successo e loro hanno appena finito di cenare (ma sappiamo che è successo davvero perché abbiamo visto la prima scena). Escono insieme, probabilmente diretti ad un altro spettacolo.
Eva entra nell’appartamento. Ha le chiavi. Non c’è nessuno dentro (forse questa scena è posteriore a quando la polizia ha fatto irruzione nella casa).

What is unique about this cinema database