Michael Haneke Retrospective at the BFI

Haneke receiving ths year's Palme d'or from the hands of jury president Isabelle Huppert

The BFI's South Bank Theatre has joined the Cinematheque Francaise in showing a retrospective of the work of German-Austrian director Michael Haneke. The retrospective finishes on 30th November and includes almost his entire body of work. On Sunday, 22nd November, there is a screening of Haneke's Palme d'or winner, The White Ribbon, followed by a discussion with Haneke in attendance.

For the full programme, go to: www.bfi.org.uk

European Film Awards 2009, The Nominations

Jacques Audiard's Un Prophete (A Prophet; France 2009) is leading the nominations for this year's European Film Awards with 6 nods, followed by Danny Boyle's Oscar winning crowd pleaser, Slumdog Millionaire (UK 2008), which nabbed five. Stephen Daldry's The Reader, a German-US-UK co-production, and Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank - which premièred at Cannes this year - received three nominations each, as did Michael Haneke's Das weisse Band (The White Ribbon), which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.



2009 can be considered a very strong year for European Film, artistically as well as commercially, as films like Haneke's Das weisse Band or Arnold's Fish Tank have opened to wide critical acclaim, while others, such as Abrazos Rotos(Broken Embraces), Slumdog Millionaire, Lars von Trier's Antichrist (Germany/ Denmark/US 2009), or The Reader proved to be very popular with audiences around the world while also scooping up awards. It is worth mentioning in this context, that Fatih Akin's Soul Kitchen (Germany 2009), which won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Venice Film Festival, had not yet been released by the time the nominations for the European Film Awards were announced. Hence, it did not qualify for this year's entry.


Jahrhunderthalle in Bochum, Germany, a former power station and the venue of this year's European Film Awards Ceremony.

The awards ceremony will be held on 12 December in Bochum, of all places. I predict, that given the, shall we say, somewhat unglamorous location for this event, the star turn-out will be at an all-time low. However, the venue chosen for the occasion is a former power station - think Battersea - and Bochum itself has, of course, taken pains recently to rid itself of the white-trash-coal-mining image and replace it with a layer of cultural cachet. I doubt, though, that anyone beyond the borders of the 'Ruhrpott' has taken notice. But, perhaps, that's precisely what the organisers of this year's European Film Awards Ceremony are trying desperately to rectify.





Here is a full list of nominees:

EUROPEAN FILM 2009
FISH TANK, UK
written and directed by Andrea Arnold
produced by Kees Kasander & Nick Laws

LÅT DEN RÄTTE KOMMA IN (Let the Right One in), Sweden
directed by Tomas Alfredson
written by John Ajvide Lindqvist
produced by John Nordling & Carl Molinder

UN PROPHETE (A Prophet), France
directed by Jacques Audiard
written by Jacques Audiard & Thomas Bidegain based on an original idea by Abdel Raouf Dafri after an original screenplay by Abdel Raouf Dafri & Nicolas Peufaillit
produced by Chic Films & Page 114 & Why Not Productions

THE READER (Der Vorleser), Germany, UK
directed by Stephen Daldry
written by David Hare
produced by Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, Donna Gigliotti &
Redmond Morris

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, UK
directed by Danny Boyle
written by Simon Beaufoy
produced by Christian Colson

DAS WEISSE BAND (The White Ribbon), Germany, Austria, France, Italy
written and directed by Michael Haneke
produced by Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, Margaret Menegoz &
Andrea Occhipinti

EUROPEAN DIRECTOR 2009
Pedro Almodóvar for LOS ABRAZOS ROTOS (Broken Embraces)
Andrea Arnold for FISH TANK
Jacques Audiard for UN PROPHETE (A Prophet)
Danny Boyle for SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Michael Haneke for DAS WEISSE BAND (The White Ribbon)
Lars von Trier for ANTICHRIST

EUROPEAN ACTOR 2009
Moritz Bleibtreu in DER BAADER MEINHOF KOMPLEX (The Baader Meinhof Complex)
Steve Evets in LOOKING FOR ERIC
David Kross in THE READER (Der Vorleser)
Dev Patel in SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Tahar Rahim in UN PROPHETE (A Prophet)
Filippo Timi in VINCERE

EUROPEAN ACTRESS 2009
Penélope Cruz in LOS ABRAZOS ROTOS (Broken Embraces)
Charlotte Gainsbourg in ANTICHRIST
Katie Jarvis in FISH TANK
Yolande Moreau in SERAPHINE
Noomi Rapace in MÄN SOM HATAR KVINNOR (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)
Kate Winslet in THE READER (Der Vorleser)

EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER 2009
Jacques Audiard & Thomas Bidegain for UN PROPHETE (A Prophet)
Simon Beaufoy for SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Gianni di Gregorio for PRANZO DI FERRAGOSTO (Mid-August Lunch)
Michael Haneke for DAS WEISSE BAND (The White Ribbon)

CARLO DI PALMA EUROPEAN CINEMATOGRAPHER AWARD 2009
Christian Berger for DAS WEISSE BAND (The White Ribbon)
Anthony Dod Mantle for ANTICHRIST & SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Maxim Drozdov & Alisher Khamidkhodzhaev for BUMAZHNY SOLDAT (Paper Soldier)
Stéphane Fontaine for UN PROPHETE (A Prophet)

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY PRIX D’EXCELLENCE 2009
Francesca Calvelli for the Editing, VINCERE
Catherine Leterrier for the Costume Design, COCO AVANT CHANEL (Coco Before Chanel)
Waldemar Pokromski for Make Up and Hair, DER BAADER MEINHOF KOMPLEX (The Baader Meinhof Complex)
Brigitte Taillandier, Francis Wargnier, Jean-Paul Hurier & Marc Doisne for the Sound Design, UN PROPHETE (A Prophet)


EUROPEAN COMPOSER 2009
Alexandre Desplat for COCO AVANT CHANEL (Coco Before Chanel)
Jakob Groth for MÄN SOM HATAR KVINNOR (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)
Alberto Iglesias for LOS ABRAZOS ROTOS (Broken Embraces)
Johan Söderqvist for LÅT DEN RÄTTE KOMMA IN (Let the Right One in)

Das weisse Band (The White Ribbon), Michael Haneke, Germany/ France/ Austria/ Italy, 2009

German filmposter for The White Ribbon

During a recent visit to Germany I had the opportunity to see Haneke's Palme D'Or winner, Das weisse Band, which has recently been submitted as Germany's entry for next year's Oscar race.
As a result of having followed the making of this film while it was still in production, I was somewhat underwhelmed by its actual topic or, if you will, argument - of how the militarism and nationalism of imperial Germany may have served as breeding ground for fascism. However, it is to Haneke's credit, that the words National Socialism or fascism are never mentioned in the film and that he never once claims to have all the answers. What Haneke, who was born in Munich in 1944, does do, though, is hinting at a possible explanation as to how 'the strange events that happened in this small, northern German village may be connected to other events that occurred some time later', as the film's narrator cryptically explains. In his film, Haneke merely suggests, but never makes any claims he may not be able to prove.
The film's subtitle says that it is 'a German story for children', and children indeed are the villains in his film. But these children, who were molded and educated according to strict Prussian rules, were consenting adults in 1933, when their country succumbed to Nazism - and they, presumably, along with it.
While all this may seem vague to some and pretentious or questionable to others, the film's true strength is its mise-en-scene, notably the camera work by Christian Berger. Filmed entirely in black and white, Haneke successfully manages to avoid nostalgia, painting a claustrophobic, bleak, almost eerie, picture of a Germany on the onset of WWI. This claustrophobia, of course, matches the theme of the film perfectly.


German actress Susanne Lothar, the former wife of the late Ulrich Muehe (Das Leben der anderen, Germany 2006)

The performances are excellent throughout, particularly by Haneke-regular Susanne Lothar, who starred in virtually all his previous German films. In Das weisse Band, she portrays a midwife who has an affair with the local doctor, gets ditched by same under a vicious torrent of abuse, but also is the sole person in the whole town prepared to do act against the violence and brutality which have held the whole village in their grip.

Michael Haneke receiving the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival