Meaning of the title? - Der siebente Kontinent (1992) Discussion

[–] CaucasianMale 17 years ago

Australia is n the billbaord they see when they exit the carwash in the opening scene.

The image that appears throught the film is a collage, or montage of generic paradisical images - sea lapping up over a golden coast, overlooked by mountains, rocky outscrps for exploring etc

The 7th Continent is a place where they (the family) are free from the restraints of their scheduled lives, free from the confines of monotony. An ideal that perhaps can only exist in death.

I don't belong here

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[–] aashamar 17 years ago

Quote from "przgzr" in another thread:

" It is not so well known, but there is a much sadder connection. In 1966. a movie "Sedmi kontinent" (Seventh continent) was made by Dusan Vukotic, a first non-American who ever got Oscar for a cartoon. "Sedmi kontinent" was not a cartoon (rather unusual for him), and it was a story about children discovering new continent which was still not destroyed and polluted by adults, where children had a chance to live in peace, not caring for difference in color, religion, social status... So you see how heartbreaking can be comparing this movie full of hope to a brilliant but so dark Haneke's work. (It might be a difference in author's characters and attitudes, but more likely a difference between 60's/70's and 80's/90's. There is no hope left from old times, and you can do nothing but comit suicide when you see what has our wold turned to.)"

http://imdb.com/title/tt0098327/board/thread/62029741?d=77934787&p=1#77934787

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[–] trickstar_trippy 17 years ago

The 7th continent is death.
And this was most definitely the most boring Haneke film ever. I'd rather watch Brown Bunny or Trouble Everyday than be forced to sit thru The 7th continent again. Disappointing, worse off than Benny's Video or Funny Games or even 71 Fragments...

Dull and plain and not even that shocking. When he wrote in the letter to his parents about his girl's attitude towards death, I knew they would eventually kill themselves.

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[–] Sanjuro-15 17 years ago

Well.....yeah. It was suicide letter. I dunno if the English subtitles made it more obscure but I got the impression that was what the letter was talking about.

It's not a movie about a 'shocking ending'. The fact that you figure out what's happening and have to sit through it all is what makes the film disturbing.

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[–] Jesstears 16 years ago

I enjoyed Benny's Video and I really enjoyed this film. Haneke, to me, shows how mundane life can be and what one child would do to put some excitement in it, but with consequences she's not aware of, because of her innocence.

All of Haneke's movies are very slow and that requires much patience from the audience. For you to not care for this, nor his other movies shows you do not have any patience, which is rather sad.

I love how Haneke puts those 2 seconds of nothingness up to give the audience time to digest (not matter small the scene) what they have witnessed.

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[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Jesstears 16 years ago

I think that was established by the fact that they killed themselves, but why they choose Australia, I don't know. Do you? Is it is so far away?

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[–] DVDAddict79 16 years ago

I thought there were only six continents, suggesting the seventh was death

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[–] rtg 16 years ago

No, there are definitely seven (Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia & Antarctica).

The Seventh Continent refers to Australia.

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[–] przgzr 16 years ago

There was also an old division of the world that had Middle America as a separate continent, so after three Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa, Australia (the last one discovered) was considered to be seventh. (Antarctica hasn't been known till end of 19th century. And even after Australia still kept the nickname Seventh Continent. It is still rather often used in Europe where Haneke comes from.)

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[–] spartacus-15 15 years ago

Antarctica is actually the seventh continent. And as Der siebente Kontinent is the first instalment of Hanekes "emotional glaciation" trilogy, I`m fairly sure he`s referring to the coldness of a consumer-based society. Or maybe not.

I got it,I got it,I got it...I ain`t got it

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[–] artdisplay 7 years ago

Well yes, the 7th continent is most definitely death.

Didn't you find shocking the breathing of the wife when she's dying and we don't see her, only her hand he's holding? That was disturbing...

I kind of agree about the uber bland sequences when one could watch paint dry, but I liked the movie for what it is: repetition of dull moments is necessary in this context.

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[–] taylke 16 years ago

the seventh continent is heaven, where they expect to go after they die.

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[–] przgzr 16 years ago

No way. This movie is nihilist and the same can be said about the characters. They do not believe in anything, let alone heaven. If they believed in anything, they wouldn't commit suicide. And especially if they believed in heaven, they would have to be religious, so they would know that suicide is a mortal sin and could never lead them to heaven.

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[–] taylke 16 years ago

If they don't believe in religion, why does the mum ask the little girl to pray every night? Why does she ask to be accepted to heaven?

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[–] przgzr 16 years ago

They live automatically, as robots. Everything repeats in their lives as it has been repeating for years, and all this is determined by the environment, habits, tradition. They don't have any real inner life anymore. Their religion is learned by their families, teachers, priests, and not what they feel or live. Their prayers are empty words that are said because it is something that they have been saying their whole lives as their ancestors have been doing as well, but the words have no real meaning to them. It is all the same as driving the same streets to same job or school, meeting same people (without any emotional relation to them), buying same goods in same shops (without enjoying in things that they buy). They could be repeating the telephone book with same (lack of) passion instead of Our Father.

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[–] taylke 16 years ago

I agree to that. But you know there was always this screen with a seaside, probably it was the place shown in the Australia poster. Somehow, I got the impression that they believe they will go to a better, more liberal place after death. Some place symbolized with Australia... A new continent, in this case a place in a different dimension. And I thought that was why the mother let her daughter pray to god. Because she believes in a place called "heaven". Doesn't have to be the heaven from the holy bible, heaven is just a name for the place you go after life. And it doesn't mean that they belong to any of the existing religions. Did you watch it recently? I just watched it yesterday.

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[–] przgzr 16 years ago

I have watched the movie many years ago - i posted a comment in 2004., and it wasn't a fresh memory. However, I have watched it several times and movie like this is impossible to forget.

I can agree with you to a certain limit, but I think they were emotionally to devastated to feel anything. Hope, taking it as either a religious or simply human term, needs ability to feel. This almost robot-like persons (who can remind me on Pink Floyd cartoon Wall) don't have emotional capacity to develop hope.

And people indeed don't need to belong to any religion and still can have some faith and concept of after-death existence. There are people who gather in fields or mines expecting to be taken by aliens who travel in spaceships or comets, and eventually even kill themselves to be transformed to new way of existence. But the mechanic precise performing of destruction we can't see that they believe in any existence, before or after death. I'll quote myself: "The characters aren't really dying. They weren't alive at all. They had no more life inside than a dishwasher or coffee machine. They just do what they are supposed to, and repeat it day after day. Androids in "Blade Runner" are far more human, even the robot in "Lost in Space" serial is. They have no trouble to commit suicide because, being a machine, they have no survival instinct. "

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[–] trymyproduct11 15 years ago

I assume it's a reference to Australia.

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