User reviews

With its silent-era aesthetic of sepia tones and muted color tints, and its interweaving of realism and fantasy, Haneke's haunting adaptation of Joseph Roth's expressionistic 1924 novel is an homage to the great Weimar cinema of G. W. Pabst and F. W. Murnau. In a heartbreaking performance, Branko Samarovski plays Andreas Pum, a soldier who loses his leg during the Great War and becomes an organ grinder to earn a few coins a day. To this loyal citizen of the State, the veterans and firebrands who march in protest against society's neglect are lazy, insubordinate "heathens." But when an ugly tram incident condemns Pum to a life of penury and loneliness, his soul is awakened to the bitter waste of a life spent in duty to God and Empire.

It may be a low-budget video shot for TV broadcast. The director's command of the capabilities of cinema's visual language is what counts here. Every nuance adds to the experience, with constant payoffs of previous moments. All the cat has to have is a little bell to cause the slightest sound of bells to call it to mind. And the cat is the child and the child is the daughter of the widow who schemingly chose the fidelity of the complacent man, awarded a medal, and a hurdy gurdy license for losing a leg in the great war.

The execution of the material is great. The source material itself appears to also be great. The title stings like a slap in the face.