71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls)

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. 

Manuscripts Don't Burn (Dast-neveshtehaa nemisoosand)

MANUSCRIPTS DON’T BURN (Dast-neveshtehaa nemisoosand)            B                    

Iran  (125 mi)  2013  d:  Mohammad Rasoulof         Cannes site: Un Certain Regard

Considering the pervasive influence of Iranian films since the late 70’s, reflecting a revitalized spirit of the post Shah Iranian Revolution, producing such prodigious talents as Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Majid Majidi, Dariush Mehrjui, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Jafar Panahi, and Asghar Farhadi, it’s more than disheartening to revisit the current state of Iranian cinema.  Since the last disputed Iranian Presidential election in 2009 where it is widely believed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the election, the government has cracked down on artists and intellectuals who alleged widespread vote fraud while retreating into a totalitarian, police state mentality where freedom of expression has been crushed.  Film director Jafar Panahi was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison and a twenty-year ban on directing movies, writing screenplays, or giving any form of interview with Iranian or foreign media, while Mohammad Rasoulof was also arrested and condemned to six years in prison, which was later reduced to one year, but his passport has been confiscated.  Both have daringly defied the court’s decisions by continuing to make films surreptitiously and smuggling them out of the country.  Much like The Act of Killing (2012), the director’s name is prominently featured in the closing credits of this film while the cast and the rest of the crew remain anonymous.  While Rasoulof’s style has been severely restricted by shooting on the sly, remaining out of sight, with only occasional street shots, unable to produce the ravishing imagery of his earlier films that reflect a visual poetry unto themselves, much of this film is shot indoors.  Like his previous film Goodbye (Bé omid é didar) (2011), a woman’s descent into a psychological nightmare, the repressive conditions expressed here have only grown darker as the noose around the collective intelligentsia has been pulled even tighter.  Written and directed by Rasoulof, what’s most menacing about this film is the shuddering ease with which the government reaches its arms into the lives of ordinary citizens, where the film becomes an expression of the Banality of Evil originally conceived by political theorist Hannah Arendt at the trials of Nazi SS Officer Adolf Eichmann in 1961-62, where she observed a man displaying neither guilt nor hatred, claiming he bore no responsibility because he was simply “doing his job,” writing “He did his duty…he not only obeyed orders, he also obeyed the law.”

Winner of the FIPRESCI prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, the film resurrects a fictional recreation of actual events surrounding the chain murders of Iran that occurred from 1988 to 1998, a series of murders and disappearances of as many as 100 reformist writers, intellectuals, poets, political activists, and ordinary citizens who were critical of the Islamic Republic, where nearly half were discovered afterwards, their brutalized or mutilated bodies found in the outskirts of Tehran, where under a cloud of suspicion and repeated government denials, most of the murders remain unsolved to this day, yet secret government operatives within the Iranian regime were deemed responsible.  Perhaps the most vicious was the killing of Dariush Forouhar, founder of Iran Nation’s Party, with eleven knife blows while sitting on his chair in his study, and his wife Parvaneh with twenty-four stabs.  Their bodies were mutilated and their home ransacked, where Dariush was decapitated while his wife’s breasts were cut off.  In another incident in the summer of 1995 there was an unsuccessful attempt to kill a busload of twenty-one writers en route to a poetry festival in Armenia, where the driver waited until most were sleeping and then attempted to steer the bus off a mountain cliff, jumping out at the last moment.  However one of the passengers alertly grabbed the steering wheel and prevented a disaster.  The driver tried it again a second time, running away afterwards, where the bus miraculously hit a boulder and stopped, preventing a 1000-foot fall.  All of the passengers were interrogated and warned never to discuss the events with anyone.  However the names of many of the assassinated victims were brought to light by the investigative journalistic work of human rights activist Akbar Ganji, who was jailed from 2001 to 2006, Iran's Top Journalist Accuses Authorities of Torture, but wrote a book on the subject, His Red-Robed Highness and the Grey Eminence, naming Former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, considered the richest man in Iran according to a 2009 BBC News profile, BBC News Profile: Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, currently serving as the security advisor and possible successor to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as His Red-Robed Highness, while Hojjatoleslam Ali Fallahian, former Minister of Intelligence, as the Grey Eminence, with both men implicated in the chain murders, also noting that Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeyi, now Minister of Intelligence under Ahmadinejad’s presidency, was also allegedly involved in the assassinations.  In addition, Saeed Hajjarian, newspaper editor and former Minister of Intelligence, believed to have played a key role in providing damaging information about the chain killings, was shot in the head by an unknown assailant on March 12, 2000, where he remains paralyzed for life. 

While Rasoulof provides none of this background information, it is front page headline news in Iran where it is presumed to be common knowledge, not that this film will ever be screened in Iran, as it will be viewed almost exclusively by Western audiences and therefore given a decidedly politicized, pro-democracy slant for its daring heroism, yet it is the exact kind of darkly disturbing story coming out of a repressive Iranian regime that plays into the hands of stereotypical Western ideals of freedom of speech, much like Jon Stewart’s recently misguided Rosewater (2014), which becomes bogged down in its Americanized moral self-righteousness.  Rasoulof’s film is not like that, coming from an Iranian perspective, where he is more concerned with expressing his seething indignation at the cloaked invisibility of brutal interrogation and torture techniques taking place right under the public’s noses without anyone showing the least bit of concern.  The story centers on Kasra, an Iranian poet and novelist living in Tehran secretly writing his memoirs that the authorities want to destroy, because in it he describes the incident when the Iranian government tried to kill twenty-one writers by staging a bus accident, where the authorities insist upon eliminating all traces of the incident.  Told almost entirely through a flashback mode, the central focus of the film, as it happens, is actually the two secret government agents, Khosrow and Morteza (surprisingly played by Rasoulof himself, the only credited actor, as the rest remain anonymous), who are sent to destroy the manuscript and any surviving copies.  What’s perhaps most startling is how brutal they become in the presence of Kasra, but in each other’s company, they’re best friends who typically couldn’t be more ordinary, where their work, which includes torture before killings, has become mundane and routine to them by now, where they barely give it a thought, often seen casually smoking a cigarette, waiting for their dirty actions to take effect, as they’re more wrapped up in the concerns of their own lives, where Khosrow is constantly seen talking to his wife on his cellphone while regularly checking for expected payments on his ATM, which is needed to pay for his ailing child’s operation.  Subject to accusations that he doesn’t care, as he’s not around when his own child needs him, his wife, a stand-in for the clueless nation, has no idea what he actually does for a living.  His partner Morteza, on the other hand, has that methodical look of a paid assassin, where killing a man doesn’t even phase him anymore.  The title comes from Mikhail Bulgakov’s Russian novel The Master and Margarita, written between 1928 and 1940, but unpublished until 1967, a critique of Soviet society and its literary establishment in which a manuscript that cannot be burned plays a central role.

    

While the fascination with the subject can be overpowering, the film itself has only mixed results, overaccentuating the banality of the events, where everything is downplayed, while at times the film tends to be overly wordy, completely detached, and emotionally underplayed, where there’s an obvious disconnect with the audience, especially when we realize these are only the foot soldiers, the neighborhood face of state repression, where far more disturbing is their superior, a man dressed in designer suits who lets the other guys get their hands dirty while he remains impeccably spotless throughout, only arriving on the scene when a significant escalation occurs that he masterminds.  Much like a secret government within, extremist elements secretly concealed inside a government use religion and absolute power to intimidate and extinguish their opponents at will, labeling them dissidents, branding their views as outdated, hostile, and Western-influenced.  From our initial introduction to Khosrow, where he still has a bloody hand print on his neck, later learning he was the man driving the bus for the writer’s conference, we are well aware of their diabolical methods, where the film reeks of torture porn imagery, people tied up and tortured, black hoods on their heads, often murdered afterwards.  Only here this is not some sort of exploitive Hollywood stylization, but an unflinching portrait of state-sponsored evil, where the underlying rage that lies beneath this film is an angry and supremely pessimistic artist who knows this subject all too well, having been jailed, interrogated, tortured, and censored, where cinema becomes a voice for the voiceless, a dying man’s last breath, a plea to the world to take this subject seriously, as Iran has become a totalitarian dictatorship, a Stalinist police state intent on arresting and silencing anyone who disagrees with the official views of the state.  While the exterior scenes were shot in Iran, all the interior scenes were shot in Hamburg, Germany, including visits to several of Kasra’s friends who (supposedly for protection) have copies of the manuscript.  While they are all under constant surveillance, living under the threat of intimidation and brutality, where each of them is visited by the secret agents, only slowly does the film reveal how easy it is for these otherwise polite and cordial men to kill someone.  While this is a look at well-educated upper and middle class writers and intellectuals, men who have had a hand in shaping the nation’s identity, and possibly its future, it’s chilling to see what can happen to them in the blink of an eye, all underplayed throughout, told through a kind of mundane naturalism, always justifying their actions under Islamic sharia law, but no courts or laws are involved in what the audience witnesses, a brief look behind a veil of government secrecy, where villainy and murder never looked so commonplace.