(aka 'Time of the Wolf" or "Wolfzeit")
directed by Michael Haneke
France / Austria / Germany
2003
Set in the indeterminate milieu of an idyllically
pastoral, rural province, a family from "the city" arrives at their summer home
for a seeming holiday getaway to find a hostile, armed squatter and his family
in the premises. Following an unprovoked act of senseless violence, Anna
(Isabelle Huppert) and her children, Eva (Anaïs Demoustier) and Ben (Lucas
Biscombe) are robbed of home, transportation (except for a bicycle), and
provisions and cast out to roam the countryside in search of assistance.
Eventually making their way into a loose, cooperative alliance of displaced,
multicultural families living under the protection of a pragmatic, armed leader
named Koslowski (Olivier Gourmet) at a disused way station, the family soon find
themselves struggling with day to day survival, desperately pinning their
ever-dimming hopes on a nebulous plan to compel a freight train to make an
unscheduled stop for boarding so that they may be transported away from their
oppressively inhuman nightmare. Recalling the distilled austerity, psychological
desolation, and unconscionable violence of the filmmaker's early Austrian films,
Benny's Video (which, uncoincidentally, is the enigmatic son's name) and The
Seventh Continent (although lacking the essential concentration of these films),
Michael Haneke's allegorical, post-apocalyptic anthropological dissection of
catastrophe, alienation, dehumanization, and primalism is compelling, profoundly
unnerving, and unrelentingly provocative. The film's recurring elemental motif
of fire - like the tribe's literal and figurative existential way station -
serves as an ambivalent symbol of destruction, instinctual self-survival, and
ultimately, a tenuous glimmer of hope and humanity.
Excerpt from Strictly Film School Notes Found HERE
Posters
 |
 |
 |
Theatrical Release: May 20th, 2003 - Cannes Film Festival
Reviews DVD Reviews Official Site (French)
DVD Review: Artificial Eye - Region 2 - PAL
| DVD Box Cover |
|
CLICK to order from:
NOTE: Purchases through DVDBeaver's links to Amazon help keep us afloat and advertisement free! |
| Distribution | Artificial Eye Film Company - Region 2- PAL | |
| Runtime | Approx. 1:53:00 | |
| Video |
2.35:1
Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: ? mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s |
|
| Audio | French (Dolby Digital 5.1) , French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo) | |
| Subtitles | English, None | |
| Features |
Release Information:
Edition Details: • 'Making
of" |
|
| Comments: |
Original aspect ratio 2.35:1, anamorphic, with optional, white, English subs. Brilliant stuff! - The film is very dark, in both respects: it is thematically apocalyptic and shot much of the time at night. Haneke makes full use of the contrast between long nighttime scenes and glaring sunlight. For whole stretches it feels as if you're actually outside at night, your eyes struggling to accustom themselves to the darkness - following distant lights or pale patches of light in the foreground. I haven't seen a film that does this for a long time, and the DVD does as best as it can in the circumstances. I couldn't see any compression problems, because I couldn't really see *anything* for whole swathes of it. |
|
Recommended Reading in French Cinema (CLICK COVERS or TITLES for more information)
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
The Films in My Life |
French Cinema: A Student's Guide by Philip Powrie, Keith Reader |
Agnes Varda by Alison Smith | Godard on Godard : Critical Writings by Jean-Luc Godard | Notes on the Cinematographer by Robert Bresson |
Robert Bresson (Cinematheque Ontario Monographs, No.
2) by James Quandt |
The Art of Cinema by Jean Cocteau |
French New Wave
by Jean Douchet, Robert Bonnono, Cedric Anger, Robert Bononno |
French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present by Remi Fournier Lanzoni |
Truffaut: A Biography by Antoine do Baecque and Serge Toubiana |
Check out more in "The Library"
DVD Menus
 |
 |
 |
 |
Subtitle Sample
 |
Screen Captures
 |
 |
 |
 |
The below capture is representative of much of the DVD which is extremely dark in contrast (and tone!).
 |
Mail cheques, money orders, cash to: or CLICK PayPal logo to donate!
|
Gary Tooze
|
|
