Of the Haneke films I've seen, this is the only one that didn't absolutely blow my mind. Funny Games is my all time favorite film, and The Piano Teacher is in the same league. Time of the Wolf (TotW) is stylistically recognizable as Haneke's work, and is certainly a well-made film. Unlike his other films, however, it contains nothing the veteran viewer hasn't seen (a dozen times) before.
TotW is a post-apocalyptic drama. The cause of the apocalypse is ambiguous; the focus is on human behavior under stress, and in the absence of authority. The style of the film is appropriately very bleak and dry. Though there are occasional dramatic events, they certainly do not feel like action scenes. Rather, the whole thing deliberately has a very "tired" feel to it. Most of the characters are very convincing, and the film's greatest strength is the horror it creates in showing normal people break under the stress.
A difficulty with making a post-apocalyptic story is that there are only so many things one can do with it. If you've read "The Road," you've essentially seen TotW. If you can imagine 28 Days Later with more subtlety and no zombies, you can imagine TotW; some components of the endings are nearly identical. I personally feel that Haneke's directing talents were wasted with this one, because it's such a tired old story that the slow pace and subtlety just makes it tedious--to the veteran viewer, there's no magic, no mystery; just repetition.
TotW is a post-apocalyptic drama. The cause of the apocalypse is ambiguous; the focus is on human behavior under stress, and in the absence of authority. The style of the film is appropriately very bleak and dry. Though there are occasional dramatic events, they certainly do not feel like action scenes. Rather, the whole thing deliberately has a very "tired" feel to it. Most of the characters are very convincing, and the film's greatest strength is the horror it creates in showing normal people break under the stress.
A difficulty with making a post-apocalyptic story is that there are only so many things one can do with it. If you've read "The Road," you've essentially seen TotW. If you can imagine 28 Days Later with more subtlety and no zombies, you can imagine TotW; some components of the endings are nearly identical. I personally feel that Haneke's directing talents were wasted with this one, because it's such a tired old story that the slow pace and subtlety just makes it tedious--to the veteran viewer, there's no magic, no mystery; just repetition.