Haneke's provocations

More likely than not, one of the least popular film screenings here in the metropolis is The Learned Film Buff screenings being held at the UP Videotheque on a monthly basis. So much so that during the past couple of months wherein this film junkie attended the screenings, the number of viewers would barely reach a dozen (there was a time that there were only 2 of us!). Probably, this was due to lack of widespread reach (considering we already have various forms of social media) or because the event was really aimed at a very "specific" group, as the name of the event itself suggests. Even if less "popular", it doesn't follow that the screenings are not worth one's time. In fact, the films featured these past couple of months were a treat to film enthusiasts. The event was able to live up to its conceit of coming up with "random picks that film lovers will truly enjoy". 

Last August, it featured Timur Bekmambetov's hip and imaginative vampire fantasy "Night Watch" (the other one was "Day Watch", part of the director's envisioned trilogy, which I wasn't able to see though). Last month, the films shown were 3 of Ishmael Bernal's early '80s works - the low-brow but weirdly entertaining screwball comedies "Pabling" and "Galawgaw", and the little-known curious specimen of the romantic drama genre, "Hindi Kita Malimot", all featuring the then-popular love team of Maricel Soriano and William Martinez. 

For the month of October, it showcased 2 films by the provocative Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke - "Amour" and "The White Ribbon", both Palme d'Or winners at the Cannes International Film Festival (making Haneke one of the very few filmmakers who received the festival's highest prize more than once). I was actually hoping that the films to be shown were Haneke's earlier works, notably the least-accessible and the more-demanding "Glaciation" trilogy, which would be a good introduction to this director's brand of cinema. Nevertheless, I was more than satisfied with the films that were eventually featured. Let's take a look at those films. 

"Amour" (Palme d'Or winner at the 2012 Cannes film fest) 

The set-up couldn't have been more perfect for a sentimental love story. Two French cinema icons - Jean-Louis Trintignant (of "A Man and a Woman") and Emmanuelle Riva (of "Hiroshima Mon Amour") - portraying an aging couple. A debilitating disease. The couple's struggle through it. The only thing is that Haneke has no intention of turning his story into a saccharine weeper. Throughout this mostly 2-character chamber drama, we are kept at an arm's length from the events in the couple's life unfolding onscreen, depicted by way of the director's signature verbose exchange, long takes, spare editing and still frames. The sweet and light nature of things are definitely not working in favor of Anne and George (the couple). Rather, it is the grimness and coldness of the proceedings that are taking their toll on them. As is the director's inclination, what we have here is an almost clinical study of a husband and wife's spiral-down through their twilight years, brought about by circumstances that are not entirely within their control, as if a dispassionate psychoanalyst were diligently taking down notes from their case. This is certainly not the standard notion of "love" which the film's title might deceptively imply. The great thing is, given Haneke's methodical approach, we are the more affected, disturbed and moved by the couple's plight. It might not be too much to say that "Amour" could be the director's most affecting film to date. Though it doesn't follow that it is less misogynistic and less provocative.

Which brings me to some questions that remain unanswered as when they first came up during the film's initial viewing (in last year's Cinemanila). Does the couple's only daughter Eva (portrayed by Haneke's muse, Isabelle Huppert) really care for them? What could be Anne's real intention in being stubbornly against being brought to the hospital and being given proper care by the doctors, that it almost amounts to a death-wish? What could be the significance of the long anecdote that George tells the near-delirious Anne, before he commits the penultimate unthinkable act? By the end of the film, did George also consummate his own death-wish? Questions like these that become more baffling with each viewing are, for me, some of the things that constitute great cinema. And "Amour", undoubtedly, fits such a description. 

"The White Ribbon" (Palme d'Or winner at the 2009 Cannes film fest) 

If "Amour" is heavily concentrated on just 2 characters, in "The White Ribbon", we have an ensemble, a community. Given such a setting, the intent of the latter film is more provocative:It provides us a glimpse into what could be the deep psychological roots of fascism. By filtering its psychology through the parents' - or any adult figure's - harshness, rigidity and cold-heartedness towards their children and through the resulting deadly mischiefs of the children themselves, the film seems to imply that fascism is something that could have been hindered if the adults only bothered to take their responsibility towards their young flock in a less stringent direction. The thesis appears somewhat pat in writing, but seeing it being propounded onscreen in true Haneke fashion - exacting, glacial, grim, coupled with Christian Berger's suggestive black-and-white photography (the first time Haneke used monochromatic hue in his film) - makes for a really unsettling viewing. Almost all the adult folks here show little or no tenderness at all towards the children (and if there's any ''tenderness'', it's more geared towards carnality). And the children's mischiefs are almost unbelievable in their sheer brutality;all the more so because the perpetrators (except in one instance) are merely suggested. This film could probably serve as a companion piece to a work of German psychological literature, titled no less than "The Mass Psychology of Fascism", written by Wilhelm Reich. In fact, I just realized that watching the film is like reading an immersive epic novel, complete with a dispassionate voice-over narration, having the events unfolding as if taken from the pages of each new chapter. In its almost 2 1/2 hour running time, we get to meticulously encounter the Baron and the Baroness, the Doctor and his mistress, the Steward, the Pastor, the Teacher, and all the children, and the strange and brutal occurrences that shape their lives and the entire community, some few years before the advent of a cataclysmic event.

Whether everything in "The White Ribbon" is based on a historical fact or a work of fiction, what is certain is that after viewing the film, a number of questions, mostly in the nature of ''What-if'', keep rolling through my head. Foremost of which is that, ''What if the adults didn't inflict such cruel acts on the children, could fascism - and the mass slaughter that came with it - ever have happened?'' Just thinking.