Customer Reviews

The Seventh Continent [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

WARNING - POSSIBLY SPOILERS AHEAD

Excellent film. Extremely unorthodox. Be warned, this film doesn't really follow a standard narrative (it seems like most of what happens happens off-screen).

This is a film about a family that literally implodes, however there are no big verbal exchanges or explosions, no big speeches about "the meaning of it all". The director tells the story primarily with images and people placed in the frame as secondary characters to inanimate objects.

Essentially, a story about a family (mother, father, daughter) that are emotionally devastated by the 20th century and the environment of the technology age.

Someone else was correct in describing this film as similar to Todd Haynes "Safe". Both films are excellent, although Safe is more creepy-crawly ambiguous, The Seventh Continent is more devastating, darker - the kind of film that rattles your teeth days after when thinking about it.

there are scenes in this film that literally make you want to jump out of your skin: the sight of a pair of hands tearing up money and flushing it down the toilet (we never see the person's face). The scene goes on and on and you keep thinking "when is the director going to cut away from this???" but he keeps showing it. And then you realize there is something awesomely disturbing about what you are seeing: its so taboo in this day and age to see money being systematically, ritualistically destroyed. And to see it go on and on provokes a real response.

There are many moments like this.
That would be GREAT if this were released on DVD, along with the other two films in Haneke's "glaciation" trilogy: "Benny Video" and "71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance". These are nearly impossible to find!!! PLease release them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In French it would be La Nausee, in the USA it is The Blues. A young middle class Austrian family slowly falls apart before our eyes. It begins with their young daughter feigning blindness. The malaise slowly spreads to the mother and father. It is a seemingly loving, attractive family, but there is no joy in their lives, only meaningless ritual.
The title refers to Australia, where they plan to escape, but they never make it.
The Seventh Continent is Michael Haneke's first film, released in 1989, and based on a news story that he read. In this film he sets the pattern for many of his future films. He presents images, but does not try to explain the characters' motivation. Thus, he insists that the viewer find his own reasons for the characters' actions. There is no "right answer", since every viewer will be supplying his own motivations and in a sense creating his own film.

To show that I am not completely bias and that I will not just hand continual five-star praise to Michael Haneke's work, I present to you my review of `Der Siebente Kontinent'. This isn't to say that I don't think this is a strong film, for it certainly is, but the flaws within this film are more readily noticeable.

This is Haneke's first feature film and thus his most amateur.

`Der Siebente Kontinent' is a film that, like all of Haneke's work, will haunt you. Using his cautious approach to weave a tale of eventual brutish barbarianism, Haneke creates a cold and isolated world that the audience feels almost instantly repulsed by. We are guarded as we sit down to soak in all that Haneke presents, and as we indulge our senses we see that there is much within this world to be afraid of. Being the first film in Haneke's `Glaciation Trilogy', `Der Siebente Kontinent' definitely creates an air of emotional apathy.

The film is a true account of a young suburban family who find that they have become emotionally void thanks to their thankless existence. They go through their routines with a sterile quality that leaves them rather unfulfilled. With nothing to differentiate them from anyone else (thus Haneke's decision to film them solely from the neck down for the first few minutes of the film), they have become another statistic; nothing more, nothing less. Watching this family go through their daily routine can become predictable and boring, but that is the entire intent of the film. Haneke films this in a way that brings the audience right into their home and into their life and gives them exactly what is needed to place them in the right mind frame.

If their lives were interesting then the ending wouldn't make much sense.

The films last 30-minutes may come as a major shock, and that is indeed the purpose. If you can make it through without feeling completely torn up inside then I think you may possess a callous soul (although I am the one who said he felt NOTHING while watching `Benny's Video'). The vision that Haneke lays out for us is repulsive to the mind because it contradicts everything we want to accept. As we watch this family slowly crumble under their own mental disease (if you can label it that) we see fragments of our own lives. The mundane, forgettable, repeated procedure that establishes our days, weeks, months and years slowly begins to eat away at our desire to continue. What is all the more shocking is that this family shows absolutely no signs of internal torment. They seem happy and content.

Like you and me.

In then end, `Der Siebente Kontinent' is a striking film that suffers at times from its own intellect. Like I said, this is Haneke's most amateurish film, and so there are many segments that seem to become distracted by Haneke's own vision. Over time Haneke found ways to perfect his style, showing great balance in his substance/visual department. Because `Der Siebente Kontinent' is very much `wash, rinse, repeat' it can get a tad over-long, which is the point but also a deterrent. It's hard to critique something that seems almost necessary, but truth be told it can and does drag on in scenes (which is something of a feat for a film clocking in under 2-hours). I also found the ending (especially the use of the television) to be a tad overdone and rather `preachy', which is not a quality I often relate to Haneke's work. For something who relishes ambiguities, this film felt almost too `complete' for me. I will never critique Haneke's decisions to show the grit of the violence he creates, because that is the soul of his films. This films particular route in that department made me slightly nauseous and sunk me into a deep depression that his films don't often do. Yes, he creates harsh themes and does deliver considerable `downer' films, but I've never felt immovable after witnessing a feature film from him, until this one. The acting is spotty (Birgit Doll and Dieter Berner are pretty great, but Leni Tanzer falls apart in the end and Udo Samel is just plain bad) but overall it comes together just fine.

In the end I strongly recommend you at least witness this film (and every other film by the genius that is Michael Haneke). There are few directors out there that can convey a theme so thoroughly, creating something almost organic out of something so `evil'.

What to make of Michael Haneke, the director whose unsettling films will disturb for weeks on end (Cache (Hidden), Time of the Wolf)? Born and raised in Germany (he most certainly is not American), since 1989 he's carved an extraordinary career as one of the most challenging artists of the modern era. His films make the work of Stanley Kubrick seem like a stroll through Pollyanna (Vault Disney Collection). But Kubrick, one of the great directors in history (Stanley Kubrick: Warner Home Video Directors Series (2001 A Space Odyssey / A Clockwork Orange / Eyes Wide Shut unrated / Full Metal Jacket / The Shining / A Life in Pictures)), is the filmmaker I am most reminded of when viewing Haneke (and to a lessor extent Ingmar Bergman - The Ingmar Bergman Trilogy: The Criterion Collection (Through a Glass Darkly / Winter Light / The Silence)). I'm sure there are other comparisons, Italian neorealists and French auteurs.

Haneke's debut was this stark and haunting 1989 work "The Seventh Continent." It has a film student quality (perhaps a way of saying it's not commercial?), but with an undeniable air of skill. The photography is superb, brightly lit with the striking colors of an assured visionary. Each shot appears scientifically realized, with universal detail of the modern world instantly identifiable. If archaeologists were to uncover this film 500 years from now, in addition to being disturbed, they would have a perfect document of the existence of a middle class family in the late 20th century - compact cars, comfortable dress shoes, shower curtains, supermarkets, toilets, clock radios, televisions, fish aquariums and cereal bowls.

The film opens in a car wash as a faceless family sits idly as huge brushes slowly move across the windshield. They drive to work, sleep in bed, turn off the alarm, put on house slippers, eat breakfast, drive to work. This opening segment lasts roughly 30 minutes until we jump forward one year. As American viewers conditioned by familiar patterns of action and thrillers, we are awaiting something, anything to happen. But this enigmatic family, barely speaking a word of dialog, embarks on an identical process. The alarm clock is turned off, the house slippers (a bit more weathered) put on and the compact car is similar but a different color. This family is essentially immersed in the same routine of the previous year. It's a startling indictment of modern life, perhaps told from the viewpoint of one preoccupied by a lifetime exposed to the arts (Haneke is the well-to-do son of a director and actress), which basically means he's a privileged man on the outside looking in - but hey, there is a fish aquarium emphasized throughout.

Haneke's trademarks are apparent, even at this infant stage of his career. You have the startling violence, carefully executed scenes lasting minutes at a time and no musical score to alleviate the reality (well, Meatloaf does make an appearance on the family TV - Bat Out of Hell). And, while I suspect his philosophical reasons, you have the killing of living creatures on screen, in this case tropical fish. In later films, Haneke will kill a pig, a horse and a chicken - and I have yet to see the rest of his work. I'm not sure I can forgive him for this, but it is Haneke's way of exposing the core of actual violence. As viewers we have been conditioned by artistic murder when characters, played by such actors as Clint Eastwood (The Outlaw Josey Wales), casually kill men on screen until piles of them form at their feet (and yes, this is also a reference to Peckinpah). It is warmly visceral, an exciting charge of adrenalin appeasing, or perhaps stoking, an inner need for strength and control. Haneke's violence, certainly in the case of the doomed animals, is anything but operatic. It is real, sudden and unexpected, akin to the ugly violence of real life (work a few years as an ER doctor or policeman to understand my point). Why do we applaud Eastwood when he fires a bullet point blank squarely into the forehead of a villain, and yet, turn away when seeing the footage of Loan executing Lem? Well, one is fantasy and the other reality.

OK, back to "The Seventh Continent." As the film progresses, it becomes fairly clear the family is moving towards a decision. The choice is preceded by the destruction of every material item they own, a stunning series of scenes where clocks, beds, clothes, chairs, tables and yes, the aforementioned fish aquarium, are destroyed. The camera details this destruction, including the shredding of paper money dumped into a toilet bowl, with unflinching eyes. Their decision (as with all Haneke films, there are no abundantly clear motivations) has few simple answers, but is undoubtedly based on spiritual boredom and the loss of identity due to an endless loop of unsatisfying material existence.

Haneke's "The Seventh Continent" is shocking, exposing modern life in such a manner brave viewers will question not only the film medium (Haneke's ultimately brilliant contribution), but the mundane aspects of their own lives. Frankly, so many films today are derivative and disposable. To his enormous credit, Haneke's work provokes endless discussion and contemplation, which is a tribute to his rare skill. That's not to say I would recommend watching this repeatedly if in a depressed state.

The Seventh Continent is my favorite movie. Michael Haneke is an excellent film maker and this, in my opinion, is his best work. The film would be powerful enough if it were a work of complete fiction, but the fact that it is based on true events makes this enigma more than compelling - it becomes crucial.

Haneke is a surgeon with the camera. His style is austere and clinical. Beautifully photographed images of mundane and mechanical daily activity are repeated with only slight variation. Haneke is not afraid of silence and space. He creates a boiling tension that is made all the more unnerving by the seeming ambiguity of its source.

It is obvious that the family has lost its lust for life. In fact, it becomes apparent that they have lost the ability to live - to communicate, to emote, to feel. Haneke suggests that it is modern society with all of its technological convenience that is to blame. Twice, an automated car wash is used quite effectively as a metaphor for post-modern humanity's passivity and helplessness in the face of the technological world it has created. These sequences are long and intimate, completely excruciating.

This carefully constructed tension must have some release and when this release comes, it is earthshaking. The last thirty minutes of this movie are horrifying. The entire film is masterful from the first to the last frame. I really hope this comes out on dvd. Criterion maybe?

You may know nothing about Austrian director Michael Haneke or you may have seen some of his other strange and challenging films (Code Unknown, The Piano Teacher). With The Seventh Continent, Haneke's first film after a long life in theater and television, he has made a masterpiece. A vision of this kind of integrity, that follows its own idea so unflinchingly to the end, is rare in any medium. The Seventh Continent is a record of our generation's middle-class sterility, suffocation and despair that makes a film like Todd Haynes' Safe seem tame and obvious by comparison. The setting is an Austrian suburb, but the truth is that it could be anywhere. This is the story of everyone's family, everyone's neighbors. Haneke's images share the austerity and precision of Robert Bresson's and the hypnotic quality of Atom Egoyan's. Like the best work of these other filmmakers, Haneke's film has no easy psychology--only the desperate actions, keenly observed, of ordinary people living their everyday lives. The Seventh Continent's first hour may seem slow to some, but those who stick with it will be rewarded as Haneke carefully builds an atmosphere of mystery and quotidian dread that rivals anything in modern literature. To say more here would risk spoiling your viewing experience. This film is completely unique. A necessary story, boldly seen through rigorous and uncompromising eyes. If more films like this were made, our planet would be a better place.

Obsessive tale of the existential despair, signed by the thick brume of triviality that lives beneath the way of living of a modern family.

This dark story has nothing to do with a pretended fable, because, the universal anguish in what so many people live, may be carved in relief.

When Paul Diel defined in "The symbology of Myth" the triviality as the lack of physical tensions in the human being, then everything is clearer at the moment to decipher this apparently absurd and out of context behavior.

One of the most devastating and horrid existential testimonials in years.

One of the best films of the decade.

I think that many people will be able to identify with this film. As always, I made a point of knowing virtually nothing about it before I saw it, and I'd recommend doing the same. If you know about the plot beforehand, the impact will be markedly ruined. The first thought that came to mind after the first few sequences was "they haven't shown anyone's face yet".. I guess that's the point. If you are reading this, then you most likely are not starving, and are amongst the rich 1 billion of the world. So the actions portrayed initially in this middle class existence needn't any face, as they pertain to all of us, we the regurgitators of human aspirations (weird phrasing). We don't have a face, as there is nothing to tell us apart from the next person. Anyway, it's absurd to think that the mental process that took over the family is considered an exception, but the fact that it is only highlights how sick our society is, refusing to remodel this cataclysmic and decerebrate way of being. I was affected by the subsequent events that transpired, and one particular scene still haunts me in a vicious way, although it cannot be mentioned here... suffice to say it broke free from a certain degree of apathy shown by the main characters throughout, revealing the desperate and twisted cry of raw emotion that can exude from even the most planned chaos. Watch it all the way through, it is meant to bore you for a while, it wouldn't be the same if it didn't.

How do you review a film like "The Seventh Continent" without sounding pretentious? I could hint at a deeper understanding that naysayers can't comprehend, or I could praise its fractured narrative and fragmented insights. I could spout lofty accolades that make the film seem accessible to any viewer.
It isn't.
To appreciate the film, one must sort through obscure hints that the director drops into individual scenes, making them guessable only by examining facial expressions and reactions of the characters, as opposed to what is happening in the foreground. For example, in one scene, a little girl stares at the top of her aquarium. Why she does this is open for debate. Is a dead fish floating on the surface? And if so, what does it represent? The unseen decay of the family? Or am I reading too far into this, trying to see things that aren't there? That's the problem with movies like "The Seventh Continent"--symbolism is rampant. I could attribute genius to a director simply because I can't grasp the significance of mundane events that may or may not be integral to the plot.
What is obvious is that the family in the movie is emotionally repressed. Casual conversation masks a lack of passion, and daily routines replace any semblance of joy. At the beginning, the little girl pretends she is blind. Why? Because she got the idea from a newspaper article, or is this symbolic for an innocent child not wanting to see domestic horrors that are hidden from the audience? Are her various ailments an attempt to get attention? I believe the girl is the symptom of her family's disease, acting out to somehow procure medical (or psychological) treatment. The mother states that her husband has secured a position as a top-ranking employee in his firm, replacing an unlikable man who falls ill, but when the man comes back for his belongings, he seems pleasant and the husband lowers his eyes, as if he has done something despicable.
Similarly, when the family is sitting in the car during a mechanical washing, the tension is almost grueling. They all look guilty, sitting in silence or glancing at one another grimly, as if expecting the gigantic rollers to come crashing through the windows and pulverize them against the upholstery. Does this hint at an unspoken guilt? Or does it simply remind the family of tension and excitement that is sorely missing in their relationships? Then the moment of catharsis comes--the mother starts sobbing, but any attempt to comfort her is rebuked. Eventually she has to choke down her tears and assume a calm façade that masks percolating inner turmoil.
As I said before, speculation overwhelms the narrative. I must admit that the film does create a hypnotic spell that makes one sense malevolence, even if it is not present on the screen. Thus is the brilliance of Michael Haneke, the director, who is a master of the understated. He creates his stories as a series of vignettes rather than a fluid plot, but it works.
To me this film chronicles the deterioration of a family that simply exists. But is the movie as static as the lifestyle it's condemning? It's amazing how Haneke can create a mood through a web of seemingly random events--like a disturbing stream of consciousness. The whole seems greater than the sum of its parts. Each provocative scene is like a puzzle piece inserted until a troubling picture comes into view. My only reservation is that the picture is ultimately blurred and distorted, and quite possibly different for every viewer. Perhaps that in itself is "The Seventh Continent's" greatest accomplishment.

I cant tell you anything about this movie and be advised; dont think about learning the story of the movie and dont even think about the meaning of the 7.th continent. Just buy it and see it! And another thing; be patient until the movie ends. You will love it or hate it! I can guarantee that u cant feel a thing between... (I hope the dvd of this film will be on the market soon!)