Seen before: No
So, we arrive at the film that my blog is named after. Despite the fact I have never seen it previously, I just thought that my blog title was a 'cool' variation of it's title. Was I right? Only time will tell.
Michael Haneke is amongst my favourite directors of recent times, I enjoyed 'Funny Games', 'The Piano Teacher' and 'Hidden' to various degrees, so was looking forward to seeing some of his earlier work. This film is part of his self-titled 'emotional glaciation' trilogy, which also includes 'Benny's Video' and 'The Seventh Continent'.
---Plot Summary---
The film comprises of 71 scenes that chronicle the lives of several different groups of people in Vienna over the course of a year. They include a lonely old man, a young Romanian immigrant, a couple in a loveless marriage, a disillusioned college student, and a couple who have recently adopted.
---Review---
'71 Fragments Of A Chronology Of Chance' is a curiously segmented film by Austrian auteur Michael Haneke. Split into exactly 71 fragments, it is a non-linear tale of the events leading up to an horrific, violent incident that involves nearly everyone we are introduced to throughout the film's duration. Initially, we are introduced to several characters that all appear to have no apparent link, and even seem unlikely to provide prolonged story lines in the film. But it soon becomes apparent that the structure of this film is not conventional, as we spend more and more time with each of these characters 'segments', we learn a little more about each person, and as the film progresses, we can see where it is all leading to.
The main theme of this film, and possibly most if not all of Haneke's films, is the alienation of people. We have a couple with a young baby, who show no love or compassion toward each other, and whose only reason to speak to each other is to say 'Good Night' or to ask when the other will be home. We have a young, homeless immigrant, who has to steal or eat from dumpsters to survive. We have another young couple, who adopt a daughter, who alienates herself from her new foster parents, strongly refuting all her new parents attempts to connect with her. We have an old, lonely man, whose daughter dismisses him as a burden, when all he wants is to talk to and be accepted by his daughter and grand-daughter. And finally, we have a college student, who under pressure from his table-tennis coach, and with the demands of his higher education, distances himself from his learning and eventually snaps from the emotional weight of it all.
In the climatic scene, where the young student tries to fill up for petrol and is vehemently denied access to the bank to withdraw the funds to pay for it as he is out of cash, he returns to his vehicle, composes himself, then precedes to shoot and kill several people in the bank, and a couple of road users, before once again returning to his vehicle and shooting himself in the head. It's a scene that the film has been elegantly building toward, slowly building up it's momentum for the final act, as it were.
Punctuating the scenes regarding the various characters, are vignettes concerning worldwide news stories at the time of filming, including the Yugoslav Wars of the early Nineties and alleged child abuse allegations against the singer Michael Jackson. These interludes provide a slight respite from the drama unfolding before us, and also imply with an impending sense of dread that something is going to happen within the film that will later make it onto these so-called 'news channels'.
I found this film immensely fascinating, and held particular interest in the young immigrant's story, as he seemed the most believable character, and indeed is even given his own 'story' on the news channels. It's obviously low-budget and this is sometimes evident by the settings, but it still remains a well thought out and well shot piece of artistic filmmaking.
---Rating---
8/10
Tomorrow: A Bittersweet Life (Kim Jee-Woon, 2005)
So, we arrive at the film that my blog is named after. Despite the fact I have never seen it previously, I just thought that my blog title was a 'cool' variation of it's title. Was I right? Only time will tell.
Michael Haneke is amongst my favourite directors of recent times, I enjoyed 'Funny Games', 'The Piano Teacher' and 'Hidden' to various degrees, so was looking forward to seeing some of his earlier work. This film is part of his self-titled 'emotional glaciation' trilogy, which also includes 'Benny's Video' and 'The Seventh Continent'.
---Plot Summary---
The film comprises of 71 scenes that chronicle the lives of several different groups of people in Vienna over the course of a year. They include a lonely old man, a young Romanian immigrant, a couple in a loveless marriage, a disillusioned college student, and a couple who have recently adopted.
---Review---
'71 Fragments Of A Chronology Of Chance' is a curiously segmented film by Austrian auteur Michael Haneke. Split into exactly 71 fragments, it is a non-linear tale of the events leading up to an horrific, violent incident that involves nearly everyone we are introduced to throughout the film's duration. Initially, we are introduced to several characters that all appear to have no apparent link, and even seem unlikely to provide prolonged story lines in the film. But it soon becomes apparent that the structure of this film is not conventional, as we spend more and more time with each of these characters 'segments', we learn a little more about each person, and as the film progresses, we can see where it is all leading to.
The main theme of this film, and possibly most if not all of Haneke's films, is the alienation of people. We have a couple with a young baby, who show no love or compassion toward each other, and whose only reason to speak to each other is to say 'Good Night' or to ask when the other will be home. We have a young, homeless immigrant, who has to steal or eat from dumpsters to survive. We have another young couple, who adopt a daughter, who alienates herself from her new foster parents, strongly refuting all her new parents attempts to connect with her. We have an old, lonely man, whose daughter dismisses him as a burden, when all he wants is to talk to and be accepted by his daughter and grand-daughter. And finally, we have a college student, who under pressure from his table-tennis coach, and with the demands of his higher education, distances himself from his learning and eventually snaps from the emotional weight of it all.
In the climatic scene, where the young student tries to fill up for petrol and is vehemently denied access to the bank to withdraw the funds to pay for it as he is out of cash, he returns to his vehicle, composes himself, then precedes to shoot and kill several people in the bank, and a couple of road users, before once again returning to his vehicle and shooting himself in the head. It's a scene that the film has been elegantly building toward, slowly building up it's momentum for the final act, as it were.
Punctuating the scenes regarding the various characters, are vignettes concerning worldwide news stories at the time of filming, including the Yugoslav Wars of the early Nineties and alleged child abuse allegations against the singer Michael Jackson. These interludes provide a slight respite from the drama unfolding before us, and also imply with an impending sense of dread that something is going to happen within the film that will later make it onto these so-called 'news channels'.
I found this film immensely fascinating, and held particular interest in the young immigrant's story, as he seemed the most believable character, and indeed is even given his own 'story' on the news channels. It's obviously low-budget and this is sometimes evident by the settings, but it still remains a well thought out and well shot piece of artistic filmmaking.
---Rating---
8/10
Tomorrow: A Bittersweet Life (Kim Jee-Woon, 2005)
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