This is one of those movies that are predicated on something that may or may not have happened, and the implications of it happening or not happening and the way people deal with alarming ambiguity around things they could very well be guilty of...
Or not.
Haneke is the master of this type of movie: his stories always begin with a question that isn't answered, but by the end, you don't care, because you realise it's not that question that matters, but the questions it leads to, which are actually more important.
This movie is an example of that type of filmmaking handled very, very badly. It is simple laziness on the behalf of the director that the central question is never answered; indeed, the movie is so lazy that no other questions are asked. If you plan to see it, you ought to savour the moment of central ambiguity, where maybe something happened or maybe it didn't. Throughout the rest of the hour-and-a-half run time, you won't find yourself wondering that again, because there is no doubt in your mind for the rest of the movie that nothing is happening, and of course you know the central question is never going to be resolved. The filmmaker obviously saw some Haneke and realised she doesn't really need plot or characters or resolution to make a movie; people will watch a listless waste of time like this film and come out pretending they saw something in it because they don't want to look stupid.
Well, I'll save you the time: the empress wears no clothes.
Or not.
Haneke is the master of this type of movie: his stories always begin with a question that isn't answered, but by the end, you don't care, because you realise it's not that question that matters, but the questions it leads to, which are actually more important.
This movie is an example of that type of filmmaking handled very, very badly. It is simple laziness on the behalf of the director that the central question is never answered; indeed, the movie is so lazy that no other questions are asked. If you plan to see it, you ought to savour the moment of central ambiguity, where maybe something happened or maybe it didn't. Throughout the rest of the hour-and-a-half run time, you won't find yourself wondering that again, because there is no doubt in your mind for the rest of the movie that nothing is happening, and of course you know the central question is never going to be resolved. The filmmaker obviously saw some Haneke and realised she doesn't really need plot or characters or resolution to make a movie; people will watch a listless waste of time like this film and come out pretending they saw something in it because they don't want to look stupid.
Well, I'll save you the time: the empress wears no clothes.