REVIEW OF TIME OF THE WOLF DVD

Michael Haneke does not draw casual reactions from viewers or critics. But his unwavering examination of what people do when faced with the worst has thus far electrified me. Those joining Heneke's are as liable to discover the hope in tragedy as they are to see evil laid bare in all it's banality.

TIME OF THE WOLF
Palm Pictures

I had just seen Haneke’s earlier Funny Games when I heard about this film but it was months until I had an opportunity to see Time of the Wolf. I nervously read reviews hoping that the same obvious talent that had informed that former was present and refined in the latter. I was not disappointed.

A family travels to their summer cottage in the remote countryside only to find it occupied by strangers. A violent confrontation ensues and it becomes apparent that some catastrophic event has turned society upside down. Hearing of a small group of survivor refugees the family sets of to find them. Upon arriving they confront humanity at its rawest edge beyond social codes or laws.

Haneke’s conceit that we aren’t sure of the cause or full effects of the catastrophe that has filled the French countryside with refugees is handled cleverly. With no bomb flash, no news reports or headlines we concentrate on our characters survival rather than our own point of view about war, or nuclear power. In one stunning sequence the exhausted family sleeps in a barn. Awaking to find one of their members gone they set out into the pitch black night to search armed only with matches and a lantern. Their small patches of light recall the hopeless oppression of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. What might emerge to swallow them, what has caused this dark night of the soul? The film is silent.

It’s worth noting Time of the Wolf’s general place in apocalyptic cinema. Films like War of the Worlds, Armageddon, When Worlds Collide and The Day After Tomorrow have a grasp of spectacle. Even in a post 911/Tsunami world the idea of watching that sort of mass scale destruction is somehow still entrancing. But Time of the Wolf is positioned with movies like Panic in the Year Zero, On The Beach, Testament, Threads and The Day After, which are more interested in the human aftermath.

But all of these movies share conventions, particularly in the characters we encounter in them. There’s the opportunist, the one who rages, the angry mob, the little child, the young lovers and the wise and sacrificial old man. We certainly encounter all these people in Time of the Wolf but the brilliance of the way Haneke presents his characters is that they emerge beyond being mere conventions to become more than just traits that propel a narrative. To say too much would spoil the ending and yet it is safe to say that almost noone in Haneke’s film is simply what they appear to be instead they are more.

And to say that they are more of course implies that noone in Time of the Wolf is less. Haneke has made a film that is virtually austere. The gloom of the setting could easily have shaped with shocks, but violence happens off screen, violation is presented as with a sense of shame, Haneke is not rubbing the viewers nose in what is wrong with the world, or making simple judgments about the moral fiber of his characters. He is allowing us to discover them beyond our first impressions and in turn discover ourselves via our own surprise that they are in fact more than what we first thought- more loving, more capable of compassion, of growth. Ultimately we discover that these characters were worth preserving, or mourning in spite of their worst moments.

The extras here are mainly comprised of two short interviews with Haneke and his star Isabelle Huppert. The interviews offer much insight but of course a more comprehensive look at the film or even a thematic retrospective on Haneke’s body of work would have been welcome.

I'll close on the observation that I have rarely been moved by a shot of a landscape as I was by this film's last shot of a green field seen from a passing train. It's a testament to Haneke and reminded me of Tarkovsky's use of terrain in Stalker and Solaris. Where we are, there is hope, where we are going there is hope. A beautiful message in wolfish times.