Tuesdays
TREMORS OF AN UNKNOWN PASSION: A MICHAEL HANEKE RETROSPECTIVE
Programmed by Alfredo Fee
Courting both critical acclaim and controversy, the films of Austrian auteur Michael Haneke are characterized by an unforgiving and despairing assessment of human nature. The filmography of the two-time Palme D'Or winner (both The White Ribbon and Amour are proudly included in this retrospective) deconstructs bourgeoisie ideals and follows a tradition of social estrangement that masters such as Antonioni and Bergman depicted before him. Juliette Binoche, Emanuelle Riva, Jean-Louis Trintignant are just a few of the great actors to take stage beneath Haneke's direction. These films have left an unforgettable impact upon the public conscious, deliberating upon matters of moral and social vicissitude. Starting with the shocking The Seventh Continent, and continuing in this fashion with equally vicious and unforgettable depictions of social malady in Benny's Video and 71 Fragments - Haneke's early career is immediately marked by masterful direction and thought-provoking critique. One of Haneke's best known works, The Piano Teacher, is Isabelle Huppert's tour de force, a polemic work of erotic and sadomasochistic provocation. This retrospective encompasses nearly all of Haneke's filmography and, with the exception of The Piano Teacher, all films presented here are on 35mm. Doc Films is proud to showcase the masterpieces of this modern arthouse provocateur and provide a venue for his influential and essential artistic expression.
3/27/18 @ 7:00 PM
The Seventh Continent
(Michael Haneke, 1989) · With his debut feature, Michael Haneke first touched upon the themes of modern alienation that have become characteristic of his work. Depicting the quotidian as a ceaseless disintegration into repetition, The Seventh Continent follows the daily trials of a middle class family whose existence has fallen into stagnancy. The film gradually keys the audience into the true, malignant undercurrent of these circumstances, culminating in a revelatory finale.
runtime: 104m format: 35mm
4/3/18 @ 7:00 PM
Benny's Video
(Michael Haneke, 1992) · Benny is a fourteen year old boy who finds himself increasingly captivated by video technology and violent recordings. He becomes obsessed with a video of a pig being slaughtered and, with his feeling of social alienation feeding into a voyeuristic sadism, decides to make his own video. The expectedly brutal results initiate Haneke's broader investigation into contemporary disenchantment.
runtime: 105m format: 35mm
4/10/18 @ 7:00 PM
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance
(Michael Haneke, 1994) · The final film in Haneke's trilogy of the "emotional glaciation of Austria," 71 Fragments is a tapestry of narratives interwoven by the metaphysical hand of chance. Following several initially unrelated characters, their stories finally intersect in an explosively violent way. This act of gratuitous violence puts the onus on the dehumanizing and unforgiving nature of contemporary society.
runtime: 100m format: 35mm
4/17/18 @ 7:00 PM
Funny Games
(Michael Haneke, 1997) · An upper-class family arrives at their lakeside retreat for vacation when they come across two young psychopathic men. The two men take the family hostage and force them to take part in their sadistic games. With this violent thriller, Haneke (and even the characters themselves, breaking the fourth wall) indict the audience for its thirst for violence.
runtime: 108m format: 35mm
4/24/18 @ 7:00 PM
Code Unknown
(Michael Haneke, 2000) · Bound by the unforeseeable consequences of a single instance of littering, Code Unknown follows the stories of several witnesses. The film, composed of several single take vignettes, explores miscommunication through race, class, and the legal system. Above all, Haneke gives a vision of the social inequalites in Europe.
runtime: 118m format: 35mm
5/1/18 @ 7:00 PM
The Piano Teacher
(Michael Haneke, 2001) · Perhaps Haneke's most iconic and controversial film, The Piano Teacher stars Isabelle Huppert in one of her finest performances as the repressed Erika Kohut. Erika teaches piano at the conservatory of Vienna and spends her free time expressing her sexuality in voyeuristic and perverse ways. An attempted seduction by one of her students sets into motion a catharsis of unknown passion, as the tremor of desire collapses her world and leaves her lost in the dark.
runtime: 131m format: DCP
5/8/18 @ 7:00 PM
Time of the Wolf
(Michael Haneke, 2003) · The apocalypse gives rise to a silent world where Anne (Isabelle Huppert) and her family seek shelter in their country home only to find it already occupied by vicious scavengers. The interaction proves tragic and sets the tone for their struggle in a world lost to the wild. In the wooded husk of primacy, the Roman fiddle taunts humanity before its pyre.
runtime: 114m format: 35mm
5/15/18 @ 7:00 PM
Caché
(Michael Haneke, 2005) · Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche star as a successful and happy couple whose lives are thrown into disquieting tension when they start to receive anonymous videotapes surveilling their home. The mysterious stalker's communication begins to include disturbing yet childish drawings too. Unsettled, they begin to investigate, discovering that an incident from the past may provide the answer to the looming darkness.
runtime: 117m format: 35mm
5/22/18 @ 7:00 PM
The White Ribbon
(Michael Haneke, 2009) · Haneke's first Palme D'Or winner, The White Ribbon takes as its central concern nothing less than "the roots of evil". In a small German town on the cusp of World War I, a series of pranks by an unknown trickster target the town's upper class. As the senseless pranks begin to escalate in their brutality, a suspicion about the trickster's identity dawns on the town's schoolteacher.
runtime: 144m format: 35mm
5/29/18 @ 7:00 PM
Amour
(Michael Haneke, 2012) · Haneke won his second Palme D'Or with this heartbreaking exploration of love and mortality. In Amour, Haneke trades in his uncompromising bleakness for a gentler touch, but delivers an experience of equal power. Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva star opposite each other as Georges and Anne Laurent, a retired couple of music teachers whose quiet lives are upended when Anne suffers a stroke. A powerful document of love, this is Haneke at his most tender.
runtime: 127m format: 35mm
