71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance |
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[71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls]
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It’s been interesting working backward to Haneke’s earlier films. This one is a sort of missing link between Code Unknown’s presentation, Seventh Continent’s interpretation of real-life events, and the unifying themes in all his films of the terrorism of self and other, cause & effect, unbridgeable distance, &c…
This film takes a while to warm up, and in the first hour many of the bits seem irrelevant and mystifying, though few are for a moment dull. A rewatch would provide more sense to them but certainly not a precise, meaningful “chronology.” This is Haneke’s intent and strongest suit, of course: the viewer pieces together what s/he will.
Fragments is not quite equal to its masterfully absorbing cousins, but it’s a tremendous document of life in late 1993, juxtaposing catastrophic and tragic world events (which in nightly news broadcasts become repetitive, intoned stock stories half-heard and not comprehended) with the latest tabloid headlines and the lives of ordinary people affected by one localized, random event.
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