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Michael Haneke: Trilogy [ 3 X Blu-ray]


The Seventh Continent (1989)          Benny's Video (1992)

71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994)

 

One of contemporary cinema’s most original, provocative, and uncompromising filmmakers, Austrian auteur Michael Haneke dares viewers to stare into the void of modern existence. With his first three theatrical features, The Seventh Continent, Benny’s Video, and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance—a trilogy depicting a coldly bureaucratic society in which genuine human relationships have been supplanted by a deep-seated collective malaise—Haneke established the rigorous visual style and unsettling themes that would recur throughout his work. Exploring the relationships among consumerism, violence, mass media, and contemporary alienation, these brilliant, relentlessly probing films open up profound questions about the world in which we live while refusing the false comfort of easy answers.

 

Posters

Theatrical Release: May 19th, 1989 - May 18th, 1994 (Cannes Film Festival)

Reviews                                                                                                       More Reviews                                                                                       DVD Reviews

 

Review: Criterion - Region 'A' - Blu-ray

Box Cover

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Bonus Captures:

Distribution Criterion Spine #1163 - Region 'A' - Blu-ray
Runtime The Seventh Continent (1989): 1:48:31.546
Benny's Video (1992): 1:50:04.347
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance:  1:39:27.795
Video

The Seventh Continent (1989):

1.66:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray

Disc Size: 45,364,696,121 bytes

Feature: 32,864,243,712 bytes

Video Bitrate: 36.25 Mbps

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

Benny's Video (1992):

1.66:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray

Disc Size: 47,704,202,372 bytes

Feature: 32,933,953,536 bytes

Video Bitrate: 35.78 Mbps

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994):

1.66:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray

Disc Size: 47,236,851,725 bytes

Feature: 29,424,900,096 bytes

Video Bitrate: 35.34Mbps

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.

Bitrate The Seventh Continent  Blu-ray:

Bitrate Benny's Video Blu-ray:

Bitrate 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance Blu-ray:

Audio

LPCM Audio German 1152 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 1152 kbps / 24-bit

Subtitles English, None
Features Release Information:
Studio:
Criterion

 

Edition Details:

• High-definition digital masters, supervised by director Michael Haneke, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
• 2018 interview with actor Arno Frisch (24:23)
• New interview with film historian Alexander Horwath (27:43)
• 2018 Interview with Alexander Horwath (27:43)
• Interviews from 2005 with Haneke (16:42 / 20:45 / 23:32)
• Documentary about Haneke’s career featuring interviews with the director and actors Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert, and Jean-Louis Trintignant (1:32:10)
• Deleted scenes from Benny’s Video (14:36)
• Trailers (1:54, 1:07, 0:38)
PLUS: An essay by novelist John Wray


Blu-ray Release Date: December 6th,
2022
ransparent Blu-ray Cases inside box

Chapters 4 / 9 / 5

 

 

Comments:

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Criterion Blu-ray (December 2022): Criterion have transferred Michael Haneke's 1989-94' Trilogy of The Seventh Continent, Benny's Video and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance to individual Blu-rays. They are cited as being "High-definition digital masters, supervised by director Michael Haneke". I have seen the films on (I think) DVD, but cannot find them to compare. I believe they have all been released on BD in Region 'B'. These 1080P transfer do look superior to SD with The Seventh Continent a shade less crisp and a little more video-y - which may be accurate to the source / production. All three films are in the original 1.66:1 aspect ratio on dual-layered Blu-ray discs with max'ed out bitrates. They are clean and show pleasing, if not stellar, HD presentations.

NOTE: We have added 98 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Criterion use linear PCM mono tracks (24-bit) in the original German language with some French, English, Arabic and Romanian. There are not extensive effects; gunfire, trains, highway trucks etc. can export bass response. The segments with TV broadcast 'vieo' footage are realistically scattered and weak. Michael Haneke is not a director who uses musical score to enhance these films - a lot of empty pauses or diegetic sound often convey a more vérité experience. In The Seventh Continent there is Günter Mokesch and Karin Raab's Send Me Roses - and archival footage of The Power of Love by Jennifer Rush and Meat Loaf's Piece of the Action. It's all authentically flat, balanced and flawless in the uncompressed. Criterion offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A' Blu-rays.

The Criterion Blu-rays offers include three interviews conducted by Cinematheque francaise director Serge Toubiana from 2005 on each of the three films. Haneke discusses the making and production of The Seventh Continent, Benny's Video and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance in French with English subtitles. They run shy of an hour in total. The is also a 1/2 hour interview with film historian Alexander Horwath on Michael Haneke's early career. It recorded by Criterion in Vienna in December 2018. There is a 2013 1.5 hour documentary directed and written by Yves Montmayeur about Michael Haneke's career featuring interviews with the director along with actors Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Riva, Béatrice Dalle and Jean-Louis Trintignant. There is also a 25-minute interview with actor Arno Frisch (Benny’s Video) recorded by Criterion in Berlin in December 2018. Lastly, are Haneke and Serge Toubiana discussing scenes that were deleted from Benny's Video - about 1/4 hour's worth plus trailers for all three films. The package has liner notes with an essay by novelist John Wray (Gone to the Wolves.)

I would agree with the included documentary, Michael H. Profession: Director, IMDb description that "Michael Haneke, theorists of the image that knows better than any other the dregs of our society with their existential fears and emotional derailment to bring to light..." These three films have a lasting impression - often uncomfortably - as they unsentimentally probe the darker emotions that society, as a whole, instinctively represses. Unsettling themes include social, often self-imposed, alienation, desensitized violence, and robotically bland mass media exposure. His films are fearless and not without controversy; Funny Games, often exporting a sublime contempt for normalcy. I loved The Piano Teacher, Code Unknown, Hidden and White Ribbon. You can see the evolution of his style through these early films; The Seventh Continent, Benny's Video and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance. They are unique, deeply probing and brilliantly realized. The Criterion Blu-ray package offers director-approved transfers, interviews and more. Absolutely recommended!

Gary Tooze

 


Menus / Extras

 

Blu-ray 2

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CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

(aka "Der siebente Kontinent" or "The Seventh Continent")

 

Directed by Michael Haneke

Austria 1989

 

The day-to-day routines of a seemingly ordinary Austrian family (Birgit Doll, Dieter Berner, and Leni Tanzer) begin to take on a sinister complexion in Michael Haneke’s chilling portrait of bourgeois anomie giving way to shocking self-destruction. Inspired by a true story, the director’s first theatrical feature finds him fully in command of his style, observing with rigorous, clinical detachment the spiritual emptiness at the heart of consumer culture—and the horror that lurks beneath its placid surfaces. The Seventh Continent builds to an annihilating encounter with the televisual void that powerfully synthesizes Haneke’s ideas about the link between violence and our culture of manufactured emotion.

 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

Directed by Michael Haneke

Austria / Swtzerland 1992

 

Michael Haneke turns the unflinching gaze of the camera back on itself in this provocative, profoundly disturbing study of emotional disconnection in the age of mass-media saturation. Benny (a frighteningly affectless Arno Frisch), the teenage son of wealthy, disengaged parents (Angela Winkler and Ulrich Mühe), finds release in the world of violent videos—an obsession that leads him to create his own monstrous work of real-life horror. Layering screens within screens and digital frames within the filmic frame, Benny’s Video is a coolly postmodern, metacinematic labyrinth in which the boundaries between actual and mediated violence become terrifyingly indistinguishable.

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


Examples of NSFW (Not Safe For Work) CAPTURES  (Mouse Over to see- CLICK to Enlarge)

 

 


 

(aka "71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls" or "71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance")

 

Directed by Michael Haneke

Austria / Germany 1994

 

The simultaneously random and interconnected nature of modern existence comes into harrowing focus in the despairing final installment of Michael Haneke’s trilogy. Seventy-one intricate, puzzlelike scenes survey the routines of a handful of seemingly unrelated people—including an undocumented Romanian boy (Gabriel Cosmin Urdes) living on the streets of Vienna, a couple (Anne Bennent and Udo Samel) who are desperate to adopt a child, and a college student (Lukas Miko) on the edge—whose stories collide in a devastating encounter at a bank. The omnipresent drone of television news broadcasts in 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance underscores Haneke’s vision of a numb, dehumanizing world in which emotional estrangement can be punctured only by the shock of sudden violence.

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 

More full resolution (1920 X 1080) Blu-ray Captures for DVDBeaver Patreon Supporters HERE

 

The Seventh Continent

 

 

Benny's Video

71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance

 

 
Box Cover

CLICK to order from:

  

Bonus Captures:

Distribution Criterion Spine #1163 - Region 'A' - Blu-ray


 


 

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