I have seen many movies that were highly influenced by Ingmar Bergman, but no movie was as close to the spirit of Bergman's movies as The Seventh Continent.
Let alone some close-ups on faces and other directing techniques, I am talking about the feeling that the movie leave you with. Just watch the dinner scene where the depressed brother starts crying, for example.
I think the term I am looking for is "Bergmanesque".
Interesting opinion. But I feel that Bergman and Haneke are very seperate directors. The reason? Most of Haneke films tend to have the same techniques and 'feel' about them so just to say this one film is inspired by Bergman would be odd in my view. I also hope you don't use the word 'Bergmanesque' in the future - though you may be joking? (?)
shareOf course Haneke is a different director but that doesn't mean he wasn't heavily influenced by Bergman, just as Bergman was influenced by Dreyer though they were both different. It is not just this film. His latest film (The White Ribbon) has some kind of Bergman's touch in it. The black and white cinematography, the bleak atmosphere of the cold snowy winter and the whole intensity of the movie can easily remind of Bergman's movies in the 60s. It is something that can be noticed by anyone who has seen enough of Bergman's.
Regarding "Bergmanesque", no, I am not joking. Bergmanesque is a word used by film scholars when talking about movies that have Bergman's personal touch. I think it applies to the situation that I am talking about so there is nothing wrong with mentioning it.
http://www.listafterlist.com/tabid/57/listid/7941/Movies/Bergmanesque+Ingmar+Bergmans+Personal+Touch.aspx
I can't say that I wasn't reminded of Bergman when started watching Haneke's movies, but it doesn't hold up to a closer analysis. I think it's more a case of "more like Bergman than anything else", instead of "just like Bergman".
share[deleted]
'Bergmanesque' is just fine, grammatically speaking.
Just downloaded this flick - looking forward to some (possibly) Bergman-inspired sucide-level ennui.
AWSUM! =]
Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit shooting smack...share
Nah. I can see some similarities to a few of his dramas but this is hardly "Bergmanesque". Also Bergman used way too many styles to be pinned down to a certain one.
Somebody here has been drinking and I'm sad to say it ain't me - Allan Francis Doyleshare
Bergman's films are the work of a humanist, compared to the nihilist approach of Haneke.
Chaos reigns
I didn't find it overly Bergmanesque. Not particularly. White Ribbon is a Haneke movie I would call Bergmanesque if any.
shareThe scene in The White Ribbon where one of the protagonists (don't remember which one) tells his mistress how much he hates and loathes her, that she sickens him and that he finds her physically repulsive, is *very* reminiscent of a practically identical scene in Bergman's Light in Winter.
shareI thought that too. I don't think Bergman has influenced all of his movies, but he's definately influenced this one.
Have you ever seen Tim Roth's 'The War Zone'? That is the most Bergan, non-Bergman movie IMO.
Never seen anything as vacuous, wilfully obtuse and smugly, self consciously "arty" as this by Bergman. And for all his talky chamber dramas, the Swede hardly ever let the narrative tension to drop the way Haneke does here (well, actually, it never builds up in the first place).
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
the Swede hardly ever let the narrative tension to drop the way Haneke does here (well, actually, it never builds up in the first place).
The positive thing is that Kontinent has potentially rather sizeable reserves for the second viewing inasmuch as I had no idea how`s it gonna end and only realized Australia was not the actual destination very late in the game - and the awareness of where the whole thing`s going is liable to cast an entirely different light on everything that came before. The hindsight already redeemed the two bizarre episodes with the daughter at school, which originally seemed borderline idiotic.
However, what I`m not very likely to change my mind about, is the sheer tedium of watching mundane activities being excruciatingly gazed upon - closeups of a spoon emptying a bowl, cashier`s fingers hopping around the cash register, things being shredded to pieces - minute after agonizing minute. Yes, Haneke is trying to communicate the repetituous monotone boredom of everyday life as well as the obsessive streak in the husband and wife, but imo Haneke overdoes it; there`re just too many such scenes to hold the interest (I actually fast-forwarded through a couple of them later on - and that`s something I almost never do). And in the end, there`s the nagging, annoying question - what the hell was even wrong with them to go and do a thing like that? I`ve seen all this bourgeois desperation and ennui before, most obviously in Antonioni, or in something like Haynes`s Safe, but here it just didn`t quite feel as convincing or well articulated. Not quite enough nuance to the malaise.
As for the Haneke/Bergman comparison, the following`s from Slant Magazine`s review by Fernando C Croce: "How one wishes for some of Ingmar Bergman`s sardonic appreciation for absurdity to explore the satirical possibilities of a clan slowly expiring in a decimated home while Celine Dion emanates from the telly. By concentrating exclusively on humanity`s negativism, Haneke proves to be as damagingly reductive of life`s possibilities as the emotional malaise he sets out to expose". Indeed, it`s easy to grow tired of Haneke`s one-note bleakness that he carries over from film to film; his funny games ain`t funny enough.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
I thought of Bergman while watching this, but it's never happened with another Haneke movie...but with this one Bergman came to mind quickly.
"Hey, I didn't mean to cook your dog! But hey, those things just happen!"
I would say it is closer to Bresson in its coldness and inhumanity than Bergman, whose films I find to be deeply humane.
The room's a wreck, but her napkin is folded.