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FOUR FILMS BY MICHAEL HANEKE
THE SEVENTH CONTINENT (1989), BENNY'S VIDEO (1992), 71 FRAGMENTS OF A CHRONOLOGY OF CHANCE (1994) and FUNNY GAMES (1997).
Continuing its longstanding commitment to distributing unflinching film's
by international directors, Kino on Video is proud to bring to North
American audiences four award-winning feature films written and directed by
German filmmaker Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher, Caché). Available for
the first time on DVD, THE SEVENTH CONTINENT (1989), BENNY'S VIDEO (1992)
and 71 FRAGMENTS OF A CHRONOLOGY OF CHANCE (1994), in addition to a new DVD
edition of the previously released FUNNY GAMES (1997), add up to the FOUR
FILMS BY MICHAEL HANEKE series, one of the most anticipated DVD releases of
2006.
As exclusive special features, each DVD in this series brings
distinctive 20-minute interviews with Michael Haneke, where he reveals some
of his lifelong political concerns and unique work methods. An extensive and
outstanding portrayal of this multi-faceted artist and intellectual, the
FOUR FILMS BY MICHAEL HANEKE series showcases a considerable part of
Haneke's uncompromising body of work which has consistently challenged the
boundaries of cinema in the last two decades.
This new series also confirms Kino's commitment to one of the leading
figures in contemporary world cinema. Together with CODE UNKNOWN (2000) and
THE PIANO TEACHER (2001), both also available through Kino on Video, these
four films will be available E28093 later this year E28093 in an exclusive MICHAEL
HANEKE box set. But firstly, these four films will be sold separately, each
with a SRP of $29.95. The FOUR FILMS BY MICHAEL HANEKE series streets on May 16, 2006.
Referred to as "the most important European filmmaker currently active" (Robin Wood, ART FORUM), Michael Haneke has directed a total of eight
theatrical films since 1989, in addition to a vast body of work made for
Austrian television. Now a well known figure to both film critics and
general audiences, Michael Haneke has become a household name due to the
commercial and critical success of THE PIANO TEACHER - winner of Best Act
or, Best Actress and Ecumenical Jury Prize awards at Cannes in 2001 - and CAC
É, which recently won the Best Director and Ecumenical Jury Prize awards at
2005 Cannes Film Festival.
Born in Munich, in March 1942, Haneke studied philosophy and psychology
at the University of Vienna, subsequently working as a film critic and then,
as a stage director. His first television work came in the early 1970s, but
Haneke waited until 1976 to direct his own material - an adaptation of
a short story by Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann. All of the films in this
series have been written and directed by Michael Haneke.
Widely recognized in his homeland Austria for several high profile
literary adaptations directed for the small screen, Haneke made his
theatrical debut with the acclaimed THE SEVENTH CONTINENT, released in 1989.
Three years later, with the release of another masterfully cinematic
nightmare, BENNY'S VIDEO, the most astute filmgoers were able to confirm
that Mr. Haneke's name would become a mainstay of art house world cinema.
THE SEVENTH CONTINENT
"Beautifully controlled and liberatingly intelligent," (Michael
Wilmington, Chicago Tribune), The Seventh Continent is the first theatrical
film written and directed by German-born auteur Michael Haneke (The Piano
Teacher, Cachet). "A shocking and potent statement about our times"
(Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader), this acute chronicle of a family
degenerating into self-destruction is the first of a feature-film trilogy
(concluding with Benny's Video and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance)
that centers on the intersections between media, alienation and violence.
Described by Haneke as a reflection on "the progressive emotional
glaciation of Austria," The Seventh Continent focuses on George (Dieter
Berner), a middling engineer, and his sardonic wife Anna (Birgit Doll).
Unable to empathize with their daughter's compulsion for lying and
uninterested in each other's emotional well-being, the couple turns their
pedestrian way of life into a vortex of subjective malaise. And while a
recurring ad for an Australian vacation stands as a signal of potential
blissfulness, the couple's perfunctory melancholy eventually materializes
into barbarism.
Based on a true story, and filmed as a succession of beautifully
composed and yet mundane tableaux, this unsentimental depiction of
individual and family collapse "ranks among the most truly terrifying in
modern cinema" (Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune). More than a metaphor
of hope and escape, The Seventh Continent is a meticulous dive into the
postmodern disregard of affectE28094and a stark look at lives severed from
feelings.
1989 Austria Color
104 Min. 1.85:1
Written & Directed by Michael Haneke
Produced by Veit Heiduschka
Director of Photography: Anton Peschke
With Dieter Berner, Udo Samel,
Leni Tanzer, Silvia Fenz, Birgit Doll
SPECIAL FEATURES
- An Interview with Michael Haneke (2005, 16 min, in French with English
subtitles)
- Optional English subtitles
- Enhanced for 16x9 TVs
BENNY'S VIDEO
Winner of the FIPRESCI award given by the International Federation of
Film Critics in 1993, Benny's Video is the second installment of Michael
Haneke's (The Piano Teacher, Cachet) "emotional glaciation" trilogy.
Written and directed by Haneke, this "bone-chilling" (Stephen Holden, The New Y
ork Times) feature film opens with the amateur footage of a pig being
slaughtered with a butcher gun. This unceremonious recording is owned by
14-year-old Benny (Arno Frisch; Haneke's Funny Games), a boy whose prefer
red mediums of experience are video cameras, action movies, and the surveillance monitors placed in his room.
Accustomed to a trite routine of school activities, daily visits to a
local video store, and hours in front of his bedroom TV, Benny finds himself
enthralled by his tape of a slaughtered swine. Staying alone in his parents' apartment, Benny eventually brings home an unknown girl, immediately
exposing her to the rapturous videotaping. Then, after revealing that he
stole the gun that took the pig's life, Benny coldly shoots his guest and
turns his unwrought curiosity into a slaughter video franchise. "I once saw
a TV program about the tricks they use in action films," says Benny. "It's all ketchup and plastic."
By colliding the differences between frames and flesh, "Haneke's
chilling look at post-modernity and voyeurism" (Pauline Kael) is deprived of character psychology and the pathologizing justifications of violence.
Instead, Haneke's sophomore theatrical release offers a lucid depiction of
human beings deprived of their capacity to empathize with - and be hurt
by others.
1992 Austria/Switzerland Color
105 Min. 1.85:1
Written and Directed by Michael Haneke
Produced by Veit Heiduschka and Bernard Lang
Director of Photography: Christian Berger
With Arno Frisch, Angela Winkler, Ulrich Mühe, Ingrid Stassner
SPECIAL FEATURES
- An Interview with Michael Haneke (2005, 20 min, in French with English
subtitles)
- Optional English subtitles
- Enhanced for 16x9 TVs
71 FRAGMENTS OF A CHRONOLOGY OF CHANCE
"One of the most challenging narrative works of the 1990s."
- Senses of Cinema
A meticulous depiction of the numbing and normalizing effects of
television, Michael Haneke's 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994)
"is the most intelligent and powerful study by cinema" (Maximilian Le Cain, Senses of Cinema) of the 20th century's quintessential medium.
A "cool, cerebral and painstaking" (Time Out London) examination of
several characters, including an Austrian university student who goes on a
shooting spree, the third installment of Haneke's "glaciation trilogy" is a mosaic of 71 film tableaux - beautifully shot by cinematographer Christian
Berger (Cachet and The Piano Teacher).
In 71 Fragments, clips of TV news segments on warfare in the former
Yugoslavia alternate between stories of urban disconnection. And while
continuing to approach filmmaking from an anti-psychological perspective,
German-born Haneke assembles a unified work from snippets of narrative, such
as Inge (Anne Bennent) and Paul Brunner (Udo Samel) struggling with a newly
adopted daughter, and a homeless Romanian boy wandering the streets of
Vienna. Moreover, and as expected from Haneke, 71 Fragments closes with an
unforgettable cinematic punch, which also stands as a presage of his "lat
er masterpieces by virtue of both its style and thematic core" (Adam Bingham, Senses of Cinema).
1994 Austria/Germany Color
95 Min. 1.85:1
Written and Directed by Michael Haneke
Produced by Veit Heiduschka
Director of Photography: Christian Berger
With Gabriel Cosmin Urdes, Lukas Miko,
Otto Günmandl, Anne Bennent, Udo Samel,
Branko Samarovski, Claudia Martini,
Georg Friedrich
SPECIAL FEATURES
- An Interview with Michael Haneke (2005, 23 min, in French with English subtitles)
- Optional English subtitles
- Enhanced for 16x9 TVs
FUNNY GAMES
"BLOOD-CURDLING" - Stephen Holden, The New York Times
"A CINEMATIC TOUR-DE-FORCE" - Kimberly Newman, Hollywood Reporter
Written and directed by German-born Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher,
Cachet), Funny Games combines thriller conventions "with a number of
Brechtian devices that catch audiences in a voyeuristic trance" (Stephen
Holden, The New York Times).
A succession of "sadistic, insufferable, clever and relentlessly
compelling" (David Sterritt, Film Scouts) games between victims and
perpetrators - and between auteur and spectator - Funny Games opens with an
aerial shot of an SUV maneuvering through an idyllic landscape. Inside the
vehicle, Anna (Susanne Lothar; The Piano Teacher), Georg (Ulrich MC3BChe;
Benny's Video) and their son Georgie play a guessing game en route to their lakeside vacation home.
But a soporific rural escape rapidly turns into a home-invasion
nightmare as Paul (Arno Frisch; Benny's Video) and Peter (Frank Giering)
break into their house, claiming to be neighbors' relatives. Young and
articulate, the serial-killer duo of Peter and Paul inexplicably imprison
this upper class Austrian family, irrationally switching from physical
assaults to moments of emotional harassment and vicious psychological
tortures.
"This beautifully acted and paced German variant of Cape Fear" (Ho
lden, The New York Times) is one of Michael Haneke's most acclaimed portrayals
of unspeakable, and ever unjustifiable, acts of violence.
1997 Austria Color
104 Min. 1.85:1
Written and Directed by Michael Haneke
Produced by Veit Heiduschka
Director of Photography:
Jürgen Jürges
With Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Mühe
Arno Frisch, Frank Giering
SPECIAL FEATURES
- An Interview with Michael Haneke (2005, 18 min, in French with English
subtitles)
- Theatrical Trailer
- Optional English subtitles
- Enhanced for 16x9 TVs
Rodrigo Brandao, Director of Publicity
Kino International
333 W. 39th St. #503
NYC, NY 10018
WWW.Kino.com/press
(212) 629-6880, ext. 12
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