If there's one subgenre that particularly appeals to me, it is the post-apocalyptic movie, or any movie dealing with the end of civilization. I don't know why the subject fascinates me so, but it does. Haneke's The Time of the Wolf is one of the best of its type ever made. Some sort of cataclysm has occurred – all we really know is that most water supplies are tainted – and we follow a mother and her two children (the father is with them when the film opens) as they vie for survival. Life now is all about the few material possessions you have preserved. You try to hold onto a semblance of your values, but they seem mostly vestigial. Isabelle Huppert returns as Haneke's star. She and her children are the point around which everything happens, but they are just three people amongst many. The young girl who plays her daughter, Anaïs Demoustier, gives a particularly amazing performance. We talked (ed: on the Classic Film forum of IMDb) last week (or perhaps the week before) about the directors influenced by Hitchcock and those influenced by Bresson, and Huppert in an interview explains how both directors have influenced Haneke. It's definitely true. Haneke uses suspense in a much different manner than Hitchcock, but the devices are surprisingly similar.

Multi-talented director Michael Haneke delivers another staggering and ultimately disturbing film, only the shocks are of a completely different kind than the ones in "Funny Games" or "Benny's Videos". This is a dark and very depressing drama in which Haneke investigates how different types of people would respond if they experience the apocalypse coming. How relentless and self-centered are we towards other people once civilization changes into a waterless wasteland with almost no food or shelter? The events in the film clearly take place after some sort of huge disaster... We never really get to know what happened to the world, we don't even know what year it is or where exactly we the story takes place. Perhaps this lack of explication is for the best, because the characters need to focus on today or else they're lost. Their pasts, no matter how successful they were, are gone and irrelevant. The first shock (only 5 minutes into the movie or so) remains the most efficient one! After the opening sequence in the cabin, you're guaranteed to watch the remaining of the film with your eyes and mouth wide open! Anne and her two children are doomed to travel around in constant darkness, encountering other groups of people with the same problems. When they attempt to raise a new and smaller community, all the social issues like jealousy and hate show up again, subtly suggesting that the origin of all catastrophes lies within man himself... Michael Haneke's style is very different than the typical Hollywood filming style. He clearly doesn't give mankind much credit and compares us with hungry wolves that don't hesitate one second to devour a weaker prey. Haneke also isn't a traditional storyteller and refuses to focus on one (or a few) characters in particular. At first, we follow Anne and her children, but they don't necessarily remain the protagonists throughout the whole film. It may sound confusing, but Haneke professionally edits it all together into one mesmerizing portrait. The cinematography is depressing and beautiful at the same time, whereas the locations are plain and simply nightmarish. Whatever may have happened to the world here, you hope and you prey that you don't wake up in a similar situation.

"Le Temps du Loup" is a thoroughly unpleasant film. In fact, I could easily imagine many folks getting the DVD and soon giving up on it. After all, seeing human beings in a post-apocalyptic world behaving like animals doesn't make for pleasant or even necessary viewing!

When the movie begins, you know that you are coming into the middle of the story. Obviously bad things have happened...but what? All you know is that when a family goes to their summer home, the husband is soon murdered and apparently chaos reigns supreme through the land. So, it's up to the mother (Isabelle Huppert) to protect her children and somehow keep them alive. Through this porcess, they meet up with various people who are mostly concerned with themselves....sort of a dog eat dog world. And, in the process the very worst of human nature keeps rearing its ugly head.

I recently saw a wonderful Japanese film, "Survival Family", about the same sort of thing. However, it was far more pleasant and watchable despite the disintegration of society and social norms. At times, the Japanese film was almost a comedy and was sweet. This is NOT the case with "Le Temps du Loup"...as it's much darker and far from enjoyable. While it does say a lot about human nature, I wonder just who wants to see this sort of thing? I certainly didn't and don't know how I stuck with this film until the end!

By the way, if you are tender-hearted, PLEASE DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE. For example, you see a horse shot and then stabbed in the throat (accompanied by LOTS of blood) and it sure looked real....and I think it really was.