Who is the most beautiful film director this year? James Cameroon of 'Avatar' who broke the box office record? No, it's Michael Haneke from The White Ribbon.
If you want to comment on the most beautiful film director this year, Austrian Mike Haneke is definitely well-deserved. You can not know James Cameroon, but you can't not know Mike Haneke. You might hate his movies, but once you've seen them, you'll never forget them. Mike Haneke was born in Munich, Germany in 1942, and his current nationality is Austria. Mike Haneke is fluent in German and French, so his work is both German and French. Between 1967 and 1970, Mike Haneke worked for German television, and in 1970 began to independently write and write screenplays. He is also a theatre director, working in important theatres in major German cities such as Vienna, Berlin and Munich.
Mike Haneke won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001 for "The Piano Teacher", as well as the Best Actor and Actress awards. In 2005, he won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival with "Hidden Camera", and won the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Editing and other awards at the European Film Festival that year. In 2009, "White Ribbon" won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and won three awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay at the European Film Festival that year. After winning the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, "White Ribbon" will represent Germany at the Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film this year.
In 2005, "Hidden Camera" represented Austria in the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar competition, but the judges rejected it on the grounds that both the male and female protagonists were French, and the whole film was pronounced in French, which could not represent Austria. outside. Otherwise, Mike Haneke would probably have won the crown of the three major film festivals at the same time. After rejecting "Hidden Camera," the Oscar judges revised the rules to ease restrictions on foreign-language films. So, barring any surprises, Mike Haneke deserves his long overdue honor.
Chronology of Works
1989: "The Seventh Continent" (Der siebente Kontinent)
1992: "Benny's Video"
1994: 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls
1997: Funny Games
1997: The Castle (Das Schloß)
2000: Code inconnu : Récit incomplet de divers voyages
2001: La Pianiste
2003: Le Temps du loup
2005: Hidden Camera (Caché)
2007: Funny Games )
2009: "The White Ribbon" (Das weiße Band)
Mike Haneke's film style is very special, and "death" is the subject he most often uses to convey his message. It is more suitable to describe the world in Mike Haneke's films as "cold alien world". Although he always shoots the ordinary lives of ordinary characters, he always leaves huge question marks for the audience. When watching Mike Haneke's movies, the audience's feeling in the first half is often "boiled", with paragraphs of daily trivia, meaningless actions of the characters such as eating, going to work, watching TV, etc. Filled with long black screen transitions. However, in the second half, when the director finally gives meaning to those trivial fragments, the "why" will keep popping up in the audience's mind. Why do the characters in the film behave like this? Why did the director make this arrangement? Why exactly? ?
"The Seventh Continent" is Mike Haneke's earliest work, and is known as the "Glacier Trilogy" together with "Benny's Video" and "Probability Seventy-One". In "The Seventh Continent", the director divided the whole film into three parts, and each part was composed of the life content of the protagonist's family in 1987, 1988 and 1989. There are three people in the protagonist's family, father George, mother Anna and daughter Ava. George is an office worker and works as a researcher in an experimental unit. Anna runs an optical shop, helping people with optometry and glasses. Ava is an ordinary elementary school girl. In addition, Anna has a younger brother who suffers from depression. George's parents are alive, but live in other cities.
In the first part of the movie in 1987, the Anna family sits in their car, watching through the windshield as the self-service car wash machine washes the car. Then comes the daily life of driving out, going to work, and driving home, one trivial piece after another. The only special event in life was Anna's letter to George's parents, in which she reported the family's current situation, mentioning that Anna's mother had just passed away; her younger brother Alexander had a mental illness, and after a period of hospitalization, he had recovered. And returned to work; George just changed to a new department, the new department director is old, once retired, George will have the opportunity for promotion. In addition to this letter, it was the school teacher who informed Anna that her daughter, Ava, had lied at school that she was blind. For this Anna beat Ava. Then there was the sudden cry at the dinner table when my brother Alexander came to the house for dinner. Obviously still suffering from depression. After Alexander finally recovered, he watched TV with Anna and George. George mentioned what Anna's mother told him before his death: it would be great if people's brains were like a TV screen, and all thoughts could be clearly seen.
In 1988, in the second part of the movie, the Anna family was still sitting in the car, slowly advancing as the self-service car wash machine worked. After that, it was also the daily life of driving out, going to work, and driving home, one trivial piece after another. The only special event in life was that Anna wrote to George's parents again, this time telling them that George had been promoted. Although his boss was wary of George, because of his old age and gastrointestinal disease, Often unable to come to work, George has been appointed acting supervisor. With George's ability and level of effort, it was only a matter of time before he was promoted to full-time supervisor. In addition to this letter, there are two special events in life, one is that George's boss suddenly came to the unit and said that he was going to pack his things. George sat in the boss's seat and said embarrassedly that he had packed up and sent it to the personnel department. Another incident was that Anna's family was driving home in the heavy rain and saw a major car accident on the way, a car that had been smashed and deformed was hoisted up in the rain, and there was a white cloth on the ground next to it, covering the passengers who were apparently in the car. 's body. After the car passed the accident site, Anna cried silently in her seat.
In 1989, in the third part of the movie, the Anna family just drove their car out of the self-service car wash. Life this year is markedly different from the previous two years. The family went on vacation to George's parents' house, and George wrote to his parents to tell them that he had quit his job, but because he didn't want to ruin everyone's vacation, he didn't mention it on vacation. Anna, on the other hand, handed over the management of the optical shop to her younger brother, Alexander. After writing the letter, George went to the hardware store to buy a large number of tools such as electric drills, hammers, saws, etc. Anna went to the hospital to get her last dose of medicine, bought a lot of food at the supermarket, and called Ava's teacher to ask for leave. George and Anna cancelled the fixed deposit in the bank together and took back all the deposits at home. When the bank clerk asked where their money was going, Anna told him that the family was immigrating. That night, after George sold the car, the family of three had a hearty dinner at home and slept sweetly. The next morning, George took a big hammer and smashed the large and small furniture in the house, Anna tore and cut all the clothes in the closet, and Ava also tore up many of her paintings. Regarding the strange behavior of their family, only the staff of the telecommunications bureau came to the door to inquire, because someone informed that the phone of George's house could not be reached. George did not let the people from the telecommunications bureau enter the door. He only hung up the microphone he took down, and used toilet paper to separate the sounding part of the telephone and the bell. In the end, George stood in front of the toilet and shredded all the cash he got back from the bank while pressing the flush button of the toilet to flush the debris away. Even the last copper plates were thrown into the toilet and flushed away.
George wrote to his parents again, telling them that they had also considered taking Ava with them, but after consulting their daughter, they decided to take her to heaven together. They posted the suicide note to their parents behind the gate. Afterwards, she dissolved a large amount of medicines that Anna brought back from the hospital in water, drank them separately, and then sat in the dark watching TV and waiting to die. Ava was the first to die. Perhaps the dose was not enough. Anna woke up halfway through, and after seeing her daughter's stiff body, she burst into tears and went to the bathroom to take more medicine. George also woke up later, and bouts of vomiting kept him out of the shadow of death, but he immediately took more medication. The TV in front of the three was always on, showing the singing of popular love songs. After all the programs were finished, the screen still shone with a scene of snowflakes.
In the end it was Anna's younger brother who found out about the whole thing. He broke the window, entered the house, and saw the bodies of a family of three. Although George wrote a suicide note to his parents, his parents did not believe they would commit suicide, convinced that there must be some murder conspiracy. Naturally, the police conducted a thorough investigation of the scene and the incident, but they were unable to clarify the ins and outs of the incident, so the death of three members of Anna's family became an unsolved case.
Why? why? why? If you ask yourself this and that after watching the movie, the director succeeded, and that's exactly what Mike Haneke wanted to say and do. Let the audience think about life and tell everyone that the correct answer is not knowing. It is clear that the younger brother Alexander is the one suffering from mental illness, why did the director let the George family commit suicide? Obviously life is normal, how could the family suddenly lose their minds and destroy everything? As mentioned in the first part of the film, it would be nice if one's brain was like a TV screen where all thoughts could be seen clearly. It is also like the final picture of a movie. After all, people's thoughts are like the TV after the show is over. Except for the chaotic snowflakes, you can't see anything clearly. Not only do we not know why the Anna family did this, but how do we know the true thoughts of the people around us after their actions?
View more about The Seventh Continent reviews
