Austrian writer and director Michael Haneke is one of the most celebrated and decorated living filmmakers in world cinema – almost in spite of a formidable body of work that eschews palatability and the easy acceptance of audiences.
Over a filmmaking career spanning more than fifty years, Haneke has refined and sharpened his creative vision to an uncompromising point.
His typical approach: (im)morality tales that combine austere beauty with shocking interventions of violence and cultural critique. His regular targets: middle-class malaise, the fraying social fabric, and – of course – our complicity in the degradation we see around us.
Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective features a selection of the filmmaker’s key works – from his debut feature in 1989, The Seventh Continent, to 2012’s triumphant, Oscar and Palme d’Or-winning Amour.
Stops along the way include: Funny Games, Haneke’s infamous inversion of the home invasion horror; The Castle, a fascinating adaptation of Kafka’s unfinished novel originally aired on Austrian television; and The White Ribbon, a monumental, multi-award-winning meditation on the nature of evil.