Watching too many Michael Haneke movies: TV makes me queasy in the stomach. 71 fragments have lots of queasy TV moments. Repeated images from the news, dead bodies & Michael Jackson's ghostly face; a TV is blaring in a room, a TV is streaming images but noboby is watching.
It's not the first time I watch 71 Fragmente. It doesn't hit me the way it did. I cannot resist comparing it to other films. I find the fragmented technique too heavy-handed. The emphasis on chance doesn't really work. I don't know what bearing "chance" is supposed to have on my viewing of the film. Ok, ok, get it, the film fucks up the notion of "chronology". So; I'm getting used to how Haneke is messing around with cutting techniques. I'm getting used to the black screen in between scenes. I'm getting used to detachment/alienation/viewer nausea. It doesn't surprise me the way it did when I watched this film without having seen the earlier ones (The Seventh Continent, Benny's Video). Last time I watched it, I saw some depth in 71 fragments. Now, I find too many cheap solutions, too many empty spots, a few clichés.
The most aggravating question that pops up in my mind is: should I take Haneke's social critique seriously? Haneke's films are cluttered with metaphors about seeing. But the essential question is how his films affect the viewer and what picture of human relations Haneke's films express.
This said, the scene in which a young man is playing ping pong by himself is still superbly multi-faceted. Haneke manages to throw in an entire world of relations/concepts/associations into that seemingly static and uneventful scene.
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