magus-9

I've seen a lot of films in recent years that seem to come from the Michael Haneke School of detached, forensic, precise observation of the lives of the characters. In a few cases, this style is married with an off-beat, slightly surreal comedy, something I associate with Haneke's fellow Austrian, Peter Handke. I'm thinking of this film, and of DOGTOOTH, by Lanthimos. Both DOGTOOTH and the EXCHANGE have a wry, ironic but very original way of looking at the world. In the EXCHANGE, the lead character undergoes some kind of breakdown that is also a transformation; he can no longer look at life in a "normal" way, he begins to see unusual patterns in things, he begins to observe things differently, and to be aware of himself observing things, observing the observer; something that surely echoes with his work as a physicist, where it is now clear that the fact of observing phenomena actually changes their state. Although Kolirin doesn't seem to know where to go with this idea (the ending is good, but not exciting) this provides a fascinating, funny and weird cinema experience... thought-provoking and odd.

For most of the film's length we watch a father and daughter's sparse and bleak existence in a remote farmhouse, blasted by an eternal wind. Only a couple of visitors come to break the near-silent existence of this couple and their ageing horse. Out of this silence and the wind and the darkness, an apocalyptic vision of a fallen, corrupt world emerges.

It's a unique and haunting film, like a filming of a near-wordless play of Beckett, stained with an indelible sadness and regret that our world cannot be saved from darkness. Along with SATANTANGO and WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES, this is another masterpiece from Bela Tarr and his regular band of collaborators.