This is more traditional. A diet camp. Crush on much older camp doctor. Heartaches. The doctor leads Melanie (Melanie Lenz) on for uncomfortably long time, but it doesn't go extreme like in his other films. Like the other two in his Paradise Trilogy, Seidl here achieves that intimacy with young actors, but more tender and subtle. The banality of pre-pubescent life is still somewhat immune to Seidl's depiction of desperate living of the adults. Does hope exist only in childhood or is Seidl being ironical just like naming the trilogy Paradise?
Teresa, Annamaria and Melanie, the protagonists of the trilogy, grapple with the society where they (themselves included) are viewed in a certain way. They look for paradise in all the wrong places. #paradisetrilogy #ulrichseidl #austriancinema #paradisehope

📷 Petra Morzé, Susanne Wuest, Andreas Kiendl and Xenia Ferchner in Götz Spielmann’s Antares (2004).

#NowWatching #AustrianCinema

“Sonja, you always put on this act. Seriously. Always chirpy, cheerful, happy and successful. It’s not real. Just drop the act. No one knows who you are anymore.”
“And you know who you are?”

📷 Verena (Ursula Strauss) and Sonja (Nora von Waldstätten) in Götz Spielmann’s October November (2013).

#NowWatching #AustrianCinema

„Schau, Sonja, du spielst ständig was vor. Echt. Immer strahlend. Immer gutgelaunt. So zufrieden. Das ist doch nicht echt. Du Mußt nicht ständig eine Rolle spielen. Man weiß überhaupt nicht mehr, wer du eigentlich bist.“
„Ah, und du weißt so genau, wer du bist?“

📷 Verena (Ursula Strauss) und Sonja (Nora von Waldstätten) in Götz Spielmanns Oktober November (2013).

#NowWatching #AustrianCinema

A woman suddenly finds herself cut off from the rest of the world overnight by an invisible wall in the wilderness of the stunning Austrian Alps. It's as if the time has stopped outside the wall. Yet, the nature prevails: the birds chirp, the trees sway in the wind, the stream gently flows.... It's just her & her dog, Lynx, alone. She slowly accepts this nightmarish fact & starts a journal, cataloging her thoughts & activities in the back of an old calendar. She goes on long treks to map out the limits of her territories. She learns herself how to survive by hunting and growing crops. The seasons change, & she slowly begins to enjoy living in nature. Crippling loneliness is compensated only by Lynx & other animal friends. But her peace is not meant to last long. Contemplative, & strangely moving by the end, Die Wand doesn't come across only as some sort of a feminist parable on the modern world. The whole experience is much more than that. #diewand #JulianPölsler #austriancinema

Haneke's examination of how the entire generation of people can be capable of atrocity or turn the blind eye to it is as complex as the history it is contextualizing. There are definitely the economical disparity and religious hypocrisy at play in The White Ribbon. But what's most striking in the film is the attitude of grown ups not accepting the possibility of 'innocence' not existing. It is chilling because this view can be applied to any time period. #michaelhaneke #austriancinema