"Time of the Wolf" Artificial Eye

An enormous, sincere thank you to our phenomenal Patreon supporters! Your unshakable dedication is the bedrock that keeps DVDBeaver going - we’d be lost without you. Did you know? Our patrons include a director, writer, editor, and producer with honors like Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director, a Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter, and a Golden Globe-winning filmmaker, to name a few!

Sadly, DVDBeaver has reached a breaking point where our existence hangs in the balance. We’re now reaching out to YOU with a plea for help.

Please consider pitching in just a few dollars a month - think of it as the price of a coffee or some spare change - to keep us bringing you in-depth reviews, current calendar updates, and detailed comparisons. I’m am indebted to your generosity!

Search DVDBeaver

S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

(aka 'Time of the Wolf" or "Wolfzeit")

directed by Michael Haneke
France / Austria / Germany 2003

Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf (2003) is a stark, unsentimental post-apocalyptic drama starring Isabelle Huppert as Anne, a mother who flees with her two children to the family’s rural country house after an unspecified catastrophe has collapsed society. Upon arrival they find the property already occupied by hostile strangers, forcing the family into a desperate struggle for shelter, food, and safety amid the breakdown of all social order. Haneke strips the film of conventional thriller or disaster-movie conventions, instead presenting a cold, observational portrait of human behavior under extreme scarcity—marked by quiet desperation, moral ambiguity, and the fragile remnants of civilization. The result is a bleak, rigorously controlled work that examines how quickly ordinary people can turn ruthless when the structures that once restrained them disappear.

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:
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: Studio: Artificial Eye Film Company Aspect Ratio: Original aspect Ratio 2.35:1 Edition Details: • 'Making of" • Cannes Featurette • Trailer • Biography DVD Release Date: May 24th, 2004 Transparent Keep Case Chapters: 12

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.

Contains an interesting 20 minute Making Of documentary and a so-so 5 minute Cannes piece. Definitely recommended.

Nick Wrigley

Recommended Reading in French Cinema (CLICK COVERS or TITLES for more information)


The Films in My Life by Francois Truffaut, Leonard Mayhew	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