AFI FEST Los Angeles International Film Festival 2009

After the gleaming contemporary surfaces of CACHE and THE PIANO TEACHER, Michael Haneke turns his caustic eye on an obscure German farming village just before World War I. The population operates on the same notions of class, hierarchy and morality that have reigned for a thousand years, until sudden mysterious acts of cruelty and violence occur. The town's pastor, baron and doctor do their best to adjust, but, like increasingly desperate heroes in a Kafka story, are too embedded in the status quo to stem the tide. Inexorably, the poison seeps into the fabric of everyday life, foreshadowing the horrific catastrophes that soon will redefine German identity. Haneke's tale, winner of the Palme d'Or and two other Cannes awards, is considerably deeper than the typical morally superior condemnation of evil Germans. The scenes of carriage rides, church dances, family dinners and courting rituals provide a heartbreaking lyricism, mourning a world vanishing before our eyes.
–-Larry Gross