Anthony Lane Ponders Michael Haneke

Michael Haneke's new film The White Ribbon won the Palm d'Or this year at Cannes. Here is a snip from Anthony Lane's article about Mr. Haneke from the New Yorker.

"As a rough rule, cinema can be sundered into two halves: six-o'clock films and nine-o'clock films. Most movies are nine-o'clock affairs, and none the worse for it. You get home from work, grab something to eat, head to the theatre, and enjoy the show. And so to bed—alone or entwined, but, either way, with dreams whose sweetness will not be crumbled or soured by what you saw on screen. A six-o'clock movie requires more organization: prebooked tickets, a restaurant table, the right friends. You're going to need them, because if all runs according to plan you will spend the second half of the evening tossing the movie—the impact and the substance of it—back and forth. So "Persona" is a six-o'clock movie, though it wont leave you with much of an appetite. As is "The Deer Hunter," whereas "Platoon," for all its sound and fury, works fine for a nine-o'clock. "The Reader" is a nine-o'clock movie that thinks it's a six-o'clock. "Groundhog Day" is the opposite. And "The White Ribbon"? A six-o'clock movie, if I ever saw one." —Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

My favorite Haneke movie? The Piano Teacher. Everything else by him takes superhuman strength to watch.

The Piano Teacher Trailer

Shopping

Cinema Revolution, a local video rental shop in Minneapolis, went out of business last week. This was promptly followed by a liquidation sale (five dollar entry fee) on of all of their foreign, cult, and classic collections. My roommate and I woke up real early today to get there on time for the 9 am opening. In retrospect, I should have grabbed a coffee and brought my camera.

We arrived at 9:12 am. Already one man had a box with more than thirty DVDs inside (I imagine he made giant swiping motions with his arms upon entering the building). When my friend took a peek inside, with his eyes, not his hands, the man immediately reminded him that "those were his." He also had a printed list of what he was looking for the length of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In line, we were startled by the woman behind us when she asked if "we could please hold her place." She sprinted to the front, her trench coat flailing behind her. "Someone is looking in my box!" No one was.

I followed a man around for seven whole minutes before I worked up the courage to ask him if he would be willing to give up his copy of Head-On. He explained that he was Turkish, and hadn't seen it yet, but if I gave him my work address he would bring it to me (after he had watched it, of course). How reassuring.

I bought two movies:
- The American Friend
- Oldboy

I'll forever feel cheated because:
- That dude had never seen Head-On and got to it first
- As soon as I said out loud that I hadn't seen The Decalogue for sale, the person standing in front of us walked up to the counter, grabbed the box set, and bought it

Moral of the story: watch Cinemania.