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Time of the Wolf
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Time of the Wolf
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Reviewed by Lee Shoquist
for Reel Movie Critic
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HH1/2
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Cast
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Isabelle Huppert
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Directed by Michael Haneke. A thriller. Not Rated (for violence, sexual situations, language). Running time: 118 minutes. In French with English sub-titles.
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When a great filmmaker turns in a marginal film, it's somehow worse than a lesser talent following the same suit. Time of the Wolf, Michael Haneke's (Funny Games, The Piano Teacher, Code Unknown) disappointing latest glimpse into the apocalypse, strands terrified Isabelle Huppert and two kids in the middle of an unnamed, near-future societal breakdown, then hasn't a clue what to do with them.
When her husband is abruptly murdered on a family vacation, the family flees to the middle of nowhere - in this case, the foreboding and crime-ravaged French countryside. They make do until discovering a ragtag group of survivors who have settled down into a small society with its own codes and survival ethics. We're never sure just what catastrophic event has led to the social collapse, and Haneke doesn't seem too concerned with it either.
Huppert does what she can with the role, and she's typically excellent in a late ironic scene where she confronts her husband's killer with frustratingly unsatisfactory results. Unfortunately, the same fireworks that were created on her previous outing with Haneke, the shocking Cannes winner The Piano Teacher, have been significantly diffused, in favor of a sometimes fascinating, sometimes tedious, "realistic" approach to the film. Very little sound, minimal dialogue, underplayed performances, which might be provocatively on target - but are in no way.
The film does Huppert no justice by essentially jettisoning her personal story midway, in favor of the twisted survival group dynamics of desperation that have little dramatic impact and are rendered interesting only on an aesthetic level, bathed in coolly brilliant cinematography. A sequence near the end of the film strikes a chord of awesome power, as the youngest son contemplates suicide. Fellow survivors Beatrice Dalle and celebrated director Patrice Chereau (Intimacy) round out the cast.
Time of the Wolf is a reasonably interesting premise that goes nowhere too fascinating, and buries its lead actress under the weight of its heavy, plodding narrative. The film is rendered nearly lifeless by Haneke's insistence on playing everything deadly serious and solemn. It is only intermittently satisfying, and though in premise it may be one of Haneke's most ambitious creatures, on film it's far from his most compelling.
Time of the Wolf is a film about an idea, not characters. It's easy to respect Haneke's film for its steel-eyed glimpse into hell, but harder to enjoy his approach to the material. Not on par with his best, though disappointing nonetheless.
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