71 FRAGMENTS OF A
CHRONOLOGY OF CHANCE (71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls) D
Austria Germany
(96 mi) 1994 d:
Michael Haneke
Well that’s two
hours lost that we’ll never get back, one of the least engaging films ever seen,
dumbfounding actually in its inability to strike a chord of interest,
ultimately too drab to come to life, leaving the audience in complete
indifference, mostly feeling like a complete waste of time. However, maybe this was viewed as cutting
edge stuff in the early 90’s — hardly, but what’s done is done. Perhaps Haneke had to get this whole dismal
trilogy out of his system before he could make Funny
Games (1997), which by comparison literally sizzles with intensity and
still remains the definitive Haneke film, leaps and bounds better than anything
he had ever done before. Basically an
experimental film at heart, it is what it purports to be, a collection of
seemingly unrelated fragments chosen at random all strung together into a
cohesive whole, making a comment about the dull repetitive monotony of everyday
existence, showing people living in cramped apartments where television sets
are their only windows to the outside world, feeding them mush, including a
repeating news cycle that drones on all day and night. Opening with the dry commentary from German
news broadcasts, real events are shown through grainy video monitors, including
actual reportage covering the Bosnian War, including criminal war crimes
allegations against Serbian and Croatian leaders, the Somali Civil War, South
Lebanon conflict, Kurdish–Turkish conflict, and molestation allegations against
pop superstar Michael Jackson. What
makes this footage startling is not the disturbing content of what’s being
portrayed, but how it’s being digested, as people are watching this often raw
and graphic coverage with their morning cereal, where it literally becomes
ingrained with their daily routines. In
addition, seemingly random encounters between various unidentified people are
shown, including casual meetings in café’s, telephone calls home made from a
public booth on a busy street, a couple turning out the lights in the bedroom
before going to sleep at night, another couple awakening to an alarm clock,
offering a morning prayer in the bathroom before the day begins. Rarely screened theatrically, this film was
all but ignored when it was released.
The first of the Haneke films to play at the Chicago Film Festival,
where it was actually named the Gold Hugo Award (1st Prize) winner, all the
talk was about a culminating final scene based on real life events laced with
aimless violence, suggesting this was a commentary about our times.
A familiar theme
with Haneke is the influence of television and the technological age, how it
overtakes family or social relations in matters of importance in our lives,
leaving us isolated, as we’re tragically cut off from one another, doomed to
hear the same news report points of view over and over again until we’re at
wit’s end, inevitably frustrated and on the edge of impending disaster, though
civil strife in the Balkans is a much closer subject to Europeans than
Americans who are an ocean away. Having
endured the raging battlefields of two world wars on their soil, including the
demolition of towns and communities, the targeting of civilians, rampant ethnic
cleansing, with governments, of course, denying what anyone’s eyes can see, all
of this had to bring back repressed memories of what happened a half century
earlier, echoing the Nazi past, something Austria was historically complicit in
yet never acknowledged in the war’s aftermath, where certainly this may have a
greater meaning for an Austrian director.
In 1986, for instance, Austria elected UN Secretary General Kurt
Waldheim to the presidency until 1992.
During the campaign Waldheim’s wartime service in the Balkans suggested
he omitted a notorious part of his history when he was complicit with Nazi
deportations and mass executions, to the point where he was banned from
entering the United States, while the German press launched vicious attacks on
Austria’s conspiracy of forgetfulness.
In 1989, Jörg Haider, leader of the far-right Austrian Freedom Party
(FPÖ) was elected to a position of governor while expressing widespread
xenophobia and open admiration for the Third Reich. During the war his parents were members of
the Austrian Nazi Party, while many leading Nazis, including Adolf Hitler, were
Austrians, which became part of the Third Reich. In the 90’s, the Balkan wars brought an
influx of refugees into Austria, something they previously had little
experience with, only increasing Haider’s neo-fascist power and influence. It was only in 1999 when the FPÖ was invited
to become part of the coalition government that fourteen of Austria’s EU
partners immediately withdrew their cooperation. The following year Haider was forced to
resign. Austrian novelist and playwright
Elfriede Jelinek won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2004, referring to her
country as a “criminal nation” in her acceptance speech, spending much of the
90’s waging a war of words against Haider and the FPÖ.
One of the
weaknesses of the film is the suggestion that we are all passive viewers of
television and the media, with no apparent will of our own. Haneke’s insistence to show everpresent
computer and television screens throughout the film is no accident. However, side-by-side with war footage is the
inclusion of celebrity coverage of Michael Jackson, which has the effect of
equating their importance in the eyes of the world. Rather than humanizing or elevating views,
this may have the opposite effect of dumbing down viewers, where all television
coverage becomes meaningless and superficial after a while, especially if it
repeats itself nonstop, in one ear and out the other. Similarly, by cutting off many of these
fragmented scenes before they have a chance to develop, viewers are prevented
from identifying with any of the depicted characters, none of whom are referred
to by name. In fact, the often
incoherent and rambling presentation of events has a way of desensitizing
viewers to what they see onscreen, intentionally making them feel
uncomfortable, reflecting the isolating effects of a technologically advanced
western society. As if to buttress this
point, the film takes place in the week leading up to Christmas, considered a
family holiday, where Haneke includes a contentious telephone call between an
elderly father and his estranged daughter, focusing exclusively on the
alienation of the father, who continually rails against his daughter, angrily
denouncing her on several occasions, though this is in response to her denying
him opportunities to spend with his granddaughter. Due to the length of the call, bordering on
eight or nine minutes, with a mute television displaying unending images in the
background, viewers get a sense of the significance of this call in the man’s
life, cut off from his family, lonely, living a solitary life on his own,
growing exasperated at her disinterest, yet he has little else to do in his
life that means as much, finally getting a chance to speak to his
granddaughter, where his tone instantly changes, becoming inquisitive and
affirming, calling her “Sweetie pie,” the apple of his eye, before switching
back to his daughter, speaking again in banalities, returning to their grumpy
disposition, making insulting comments to one another, where this dysfunctional
device may actually express the full extent of his desperation to extend the
conversation, actually daring the other to hang up if they don’t like it. Despite the disparaging remarks, this was
likely the high point of the day, something he’d been looking forward to with
great anticipation.
One of the more startling scenes is a habitual dinner
between a husband and wife, which is usually wordless, as they haven’t a thing
to say to one another. This is mirrored
by their morning ritual, where she’s seen feeding the baby in her robe while he
walks out the door dressed for work, informing her he’ll be back “around
six.” At this dinner sequence, after a
minute or so of dead silence, out of the blue he utters “I love you.” Her reaction is priceless, getting all
defensive, wondering why he would choose this moment to utter those words,
suggesting it loses all meaning whatsoever in the banality of the moment, which
causes him to strike her in the face, an impulsive reaction. Neither looks at each other or says anything,
but are stunned for a minute or two before they resume eating their dinner in
utter silence. Haneke then blends
instances of societal rejection, perhaps foreshadowing the more acutely
developed Code
Unknown (Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages) (2000), where a
shy and withdrawn foster child meets new parents, with all the superficial smiles
and pretend politeness that accompanies the moment, but all she’s interested in
is her new room, while there’s also a parallel story about a homeless Romanian
refugee trying to make it on the streets, begging for money, pilfering through
garbage, always aware of the threatening presence of police, trying to hide and
live in the shadows. It all leads to a
befuddling moment of frustration and rage from an impatient young man who feels
cornered, his potential options thwarted, revealing how small steps of frustration,
anger, and humiliation can drive people into inexplicable behavior, like “road
rage,” moving from boredom, frustration, panic, and finally hatred, opening
fire at random, killing innocent people and then himself literally for no
reason at all. It’s as if he suddenly
went berserk. Is it really a surprise if
this is the most gripping sequence in a stream of banalities? So what does this really prove? What’s missing in this film is any sense of
community, instead each leads an alienated and isolated existence, living
separately and apart instead of being a part of something. This is the prevailing sense throughout the
entire “emotional glaciation” Trilogy, where recurring themes in Haneke films
would have to include shots of television, usually showing news coverage,
extremely long static takes, no musical film score, cuts to black between
scenes, short outbursts of violence, often occurring offscreen, male characters
named Georg or George, female characters named Anna or Ann, stories frequently
centered around psychotic, violent youths or socially detached characters, with
silent credits rolling. By the end of
the film, the television news reports repeat themselves, all but insuring that
every ounce of thought is drummed completely out of viewer’s heads, offering a
cynical depiction of contemporary life that is not only despairing but
doomed. Thus spoke Haneke.
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