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Austrian cinema: a province shaped by past masters of pessimism Austrian cinema: a province shaped by past masters of pessimism
(4 months later)
If Hollywood's knights of raucous mise-en-scene – Michael Bay, Zack Snyder, Roland Emmerich, etc – are there to uphold the gleaming castle of entertainment, I like to think there's a shadowy league ranged against them, beyond the mountains of the Old World. No bodacious starlets for this cabal, no multimillion-dollar CGI sprees; no high-octane street racing, or talking mammoths, or cheap affirmative morality. Nope, for the Austrian League of Extraordinarily Pessimistic Gentlemen, it's only the good stuff: sex tourism, the disappointment of immigrants, care-home degradation, suburban paedophilia, irrational violence, industrial farming and, lest we forget, latent Nazism.If Hollywood's knights of raucous mise-en-scene – Michael Bay, Zack Snyder, Roland Emmerich, etc – are there to uphold the gleaming castle of entertainment, I like to think there's a shadowy league ranged against them, beyond the mountains of the Old World. No bodacious starlets for this cabal, no multimillion-dollar CGI sprees; no high-octane street racing, or talking mammoths, or cheap affirmative morality. Nope, for the Austrian League of Extraordinarily Pessimistic Gentlemen, it's only the good stuff: sex tourism, the disappointment of immigrants, care-home degradation, suburban paedophilia, irrational violence, industrial farming and, lest we forget, latent Nazism.
Who are its members? There's Ulrich Seidl, dissecting modern aspirations in his Paradise trilogy; Götz Spielmann, whose impassive framing of his 2008 thriller Revanche hinted there might be such a thing as an "Austrian" style; Nikolaus Geyrhalter, the monumentalist documentarian who cast an Olympian eye over food production in 2005's Our Daily Bread, and nocturnal Europe in 2011's Abendland. Geyrhalter's company also produced paedophilia drama Michael for Markus Schleinzer, former casting director for and protege to none other than the eminence grise of this flinty brigade … Michael Haneke.Who are its members? There's Ulrich Seidl, dissecting modern aspirations in his Paradise trilogy; Götz Spielmann, whose impassive framing of his 2008 thriller Revanche hinted there might be such a thing as an "Austrian" style; Nikolaus Geyrhalter, the monumentalist documentarian who cast an Olympian eye over food production in 2005's Our Daily Bread, and nocturnal Europe in 2011's Abendland. Geyrhalter's company also produced paedophilia drama Michael for Markus Schleinzer, former casting director for and protege to none other than the eminence grise of this flinty brigade … Michael Haneke.
When I watch Haneke, at the Hollywood Reporter's writers' round table last year, chastising Steven Spielberg for his frivolous handling of the Holocaust in Schindler's List, he reminds me of Saruman schooling Gandalf at the top of Orthanc ("I gave you the chance to aid me willingly, but you have elected the way of pain"). However, Haneke reminds us that the current Austrian cinema comes from a place diametrically opposed to Hollywood values – and the latter's ruthless pursuit of emotional affect. Seidl, to take one example, successfully flamethrowers such shamelessness in Paradise: Love – transforming "hakuna matata", The Lion King's sunny motto, into the dead-eyed preamble to a million sex-tourist transactions. (Maybe Timon and Pumbaa were really after something else.)When I watch Haneke, at the Hollywood Reporter's writers' round table last year, chastising Steven Spielberg for his frivolous handling of the Holocaust in Schindler's List, he reminds me of Saruman schooling Gandalf at the top of Orthanc ("I gave you the chance to aid me willingly, but you have elected the way of pain"). However, Haneke reminds us that the current Austrian cinema comes from a place diametrically opposed to Hollywood values – and the latter's ruthless pursuit of emotional affect. Seidl, to take one example, successfully flamethrowers such shamelessness in Paradise: Love – transforming "hakuna matata", The Lion King's sunny motto, into the dead-eyed preamble to a million sex-tourist transactions. (Maybe Timon and Pumbaa were really after something else.)
In its keen focus on the parts of life Hollywood pushes into caricature, into the margins, or omits altogether, new Austrian cinema undoubtedly has a strong claim to be the world's most depressing. But there's something thrilling in how readily these directors are drawn to difficult subject matter – and how cleanly they draw it. There's a rectitude to their visuals. Most of the Paradise reviews have commented on Seidl's outstanding framing, such as his iconic poster image of the European "sugar mammas" lined up on sun-loungers, the Kenyan beach boys opposite waiting, as though in battle formations. Most of the Viennese directors compose in this controlled way (Haneke is possibly a bit more fluid).In its keen focus on the parts of life Hollywood pushes into caricature, into the margins, or omits altogether, new Austrian cinema undoubtedly has a strong claim to be the world's most depressing. But there's something thrilling in how readily these directors are drawn to difficult subject matter – and how cleanly they draw it. There's a rectitude to their visuals. Most of the Paradise reviews have commented on Seidl's outstanding framing, such as his iconic poster image of the European "sugar mammas" lined up on sun-loungers, the Kenyan beach boys opposite waiting, as though in battle formations. Most of the Viennese directors compose in this controlled way (Haneke is possibly a bit more fluid).
The Austrian style is mainly static, intent on observing (rather than participating). The characters occupy the space and, within it, are subject to differing regimes according to the director: where Haneke often applies sadistic shocks to his protagonists, Seidl seems to have a taste for setting a kind of tender farce at play, like when Paradise: Love's Teresa initiates the seduction of her rent boys by criticising her own body.The Austrian style is mainly static, intent on observing (rather than participating). The characters occupy the space and, within it, are subject to differing regimes according to the director: where Haneke often applies sadistic shocks to his protagonists, Seidl seems to have a taste for setting a kind of tender farce at play, like when Paradise: Love's Teresa initiates the seduction of her rent boys by criticising her own body.
But whatever the directors' proclivities, new Austrian cinema – due to this visual cleanliness – has the feeling of like an experiment, an attempt to diagrammatise reality that has no qualms about trespassing in disturbing places because objectivity is the goal. Schleinzer's Michael is especially innovative on this score. The space in which its procession of humdrum scenes – cleaning, eating, excursions – takes place is totally familiar; but because of who Michael is, this space has a different, terrible, meaning. The film becomes almost, as Peter Bradshaw pointed out in his review, a parody of parenthood.But whatever the directors' proclivities, new Austrian cinema – due to this visual cleanliness – has the feeling of like an experiment, an attempt to diagrammatise reality that has no qualms about trespassing in disturbing places because objectivity is the goal. Schleinzer's Michael is especially innovative on this score. The space in which its procession of humdrum scenes – cleaning, eating, excursions – takes place is totally familiar; but because of who Michael is, this space has a different, terrible, meaning. The film becomes almost, as Peter Bradshaw pointed out in his review, a parody of parenthood.
It's space, far more than time, that matters to the Austrians. They're interested in what the world is, not how it could be. Storyline is secondary; character development is less a consequence of plot (like the Hollywood tradition) than of the characters' restless striving to break out of the compartments of reality as these films define them. And new Austrian cinema seems restless itself, striking out in search of further spaces: the inter-connection between western and eastern Europe in Spielmann's Revanche, between developed and developing world in the first two parts of the Paradise trilogy. Geyrhalter's documentary work, freed completely from plot obligations, brings the technique to the brink of abstraction. Our Daily Bread – just stark, commentary-free shots of industrial farming processes, from chick sorting machines to cattle abattoirs – says more about global food production in 90 minutes than a year's worth of listening to Morgan Spurlock.It's space, far more than time, that matters to the Austrians. They're interested in what the world is, not how it could be. Storyline is secondary; character development is less a consequence of plot (like the Hollywood tradition) than of the characters' restless striving to break out of the compartments of reality as these films define them. And new Austrian cinema seems restless itself, striking out in search of further spaces: the inter-connection between western and eastern Europe in Spielmann's Revanche, between developed and developing world in the first two parts of the Paradise trilogy. Geyrhalter's documentary work, freed completely from plot obligations, brings the technique to the brink of abstraction. Our Daily Bread – just stark, commentary-free shots of industrial farming processes, from chick sorting machines to cattle abattoirs – says more about global food production in 90 minutes than a year's worth of listening to Morgan Spurlock.
Talking of time and space, I wonder if Austria's situation has put its artists in the right spot for this kind of inquest into the secret infrastructure of modern living: a 20th-century history that has made it sensitive to the unmentionable underlying the respectable; an affluent, multicultural country at the heart of the west, yet not caught up in the business of leading it, that, with its long memory, is adept at introspection. The rigorous approach of Haneke and co seems to me to follow on from the Viennese psychoanalytic tradition – what else is it their sworn mission to unpeel other than civilisation and its discontents? I suspect hakuna matata just doesn't translate very well into German.Talking of time and space, I wonder if Austria's situation has put its artists in the right spot for this kind of inquest into the secret infrastructure of modern living: a 20th-century history that has made it sensitive to the unmentionable underlying the respectable; an affluent, multicultural country at the heart of the west, yet not caught up in the business of leading it, that, with its long memory, is adept at introspection. The rigorous approach of Haneke and co seems to me to follow on from the Viennese psychoanalytic tradition – what else is it their sworn mission to unpeel other than civilisation and its discontents? I suspect hakuna matata just doesn't translate very well into German.
• Paradise: Love is out now. Paradise: Faith is out on 5 July, while Paradise: Hope will be released on 2 August. Which global cinematic stories would you like to see covered in the column? Let us know in the comments below.• Paradise: Love is out now. Paradise: Faith is out on 5 July, while Paradise: Hope will be released on 2 August. Which global cinematic stories would you like to see covered in the column? Let us know in the comments below.
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