Time of the Wolf (2003)

Of course it is bleak, slow, and ambiguous - it's Michael Haneke! I did indeed like this one, though only having seen Funny Games, Funny Games, and this, I do believe Haneke to be obsessed with the themes of home invasion and "bourgeois" people forced into humility.I CAN tolerate what some will describe as unbearable "slowness" and over-calculation of shot composition that many accuse Haneke guilty of, but mostly because I am sick of seeing shoddily edited, overcut, and underthought movies that will always flood the market. It's tough to be a legitimate film maker, because then you actually have to meet standards, which is why I imagine so many people to be very callous in regards to assessments of Haneke's work. I am always pleased to see apocalyptic/end of society films done in this realistic tone, especially in today's flooded market of action apocalyptica and sensationalized armageddon. This film most closely reminds me of Threads with its bleak presentation and closeness to reality. A wonderful film, but you must be a patient fim viewer (read: not an ADD crazed artificial adrenaline junkie plucked from the teeming masses). I must confess that I dislike the ending, not because it is ambiguous; indeed I like to think I know what awaits the characters after the reel ceases to roll, and I delight in imagining the specifics of how they will deal with yet another difficult and wholly new situation. I dislike the ending not for the final shot, but for the scene right before it, and the haste with which all of the dangling storylines are abandoned for this overhanded symbolic moment which will contribute to many viewers feeling similarly abandoned and befuddled by the director's choice, but as is often the way with Haneke, that mau be indeed precisely what he wants the audience to feel. Viewed from that perspective, I can accept that scene, but I cannot accept the countless storylines which were just moments ago being adequately nourished and developed, but are now suddenly left desperately open to interpretation.