Le Temps du loup (2003) Directed by Michael Haneke
Drama
aka: The Time of the Wolf
Film Review
Having given us some of the most inventive and disturbing cinema in recent years, Michael
Haneke takes on what is arguably his most daring subject to date: a disaster movie set
in some unspecified near-future époque. To his credit, Haneke eschews the
big-budget special effects of contemporary Hollywood productions and instead focuses
entirely on the psychological impact of an unknown apocalypse on a disparate group of
human beings. Put in these terms, it appears that Haneke would have a sure winner
on his hands. Unfortunately, despite a promising start and a very few powerful images
along the way, the film is a massive disappointment.
Haneke fails to give the film the cohesion and bite of his earlier works and where
shock scenes are included - such as a horse having its throat cut in close-up -
these serve merely to aggravate an already disenchanted audience. Part of the problem
is that the nature of the disaster which has occurred is never revealed to us, so the
situation feels too abstract, too remote for any audience to identify with. Secondly,
instead of showing us believable reactions of the survivors to their post-apocalyptic
Hell, all the film gives us is the same old predictable histrionics you'd find in
any other second rate disaster film. As if that wasn't enough, the film fails
to get any value out of its talented lead actors - which include Isabelle Huppert
and Béatrice Dalle, whose contributions are as flat, complacent and remote as the
film is in general.
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Next Michael Haneke film: Caché (2005)
Film Synopsis
With society falling apart in the wake of some global catastrophe, a French family hope
to take refuge in their country home. Shortly after they arrive, they find
their house is occupied. The father is killed instantly, leaving his wife, Anna,
and their two children with nothing but a bicycle and a few meagre provisions.
Continuing their increasingly desperate trek across the barren countryside, the young
family arrives at a former railway station which now serves as a refuge for a group of
survivors. How are these people going to cope with the sudden changes that have
been forced upon them?
Franz Kafka's letters to his fiancée Felice Bauer not only reveal a soul in torment; they also give us a harrowing self-portrait of a man appalled by his own existence.
With so many great films to choose from, it's nigh on impossible to compile a short-list of the best 15 French films of all time - but here's our feeble attempt to do just that.