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European Film

This guide includes introductory readings and resources on European film, including books, articles, moving images, and more.

Austrian Film Resources

Selected Austrian Films

The Hands of Orlac/Orlacs Hände (dir. Robert Wiene, 1924)

"A world-famous pianist loses both hands in an accident. When new hands are grafted on, he doesn't know they once belonged to a murderer."

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Sissi (dir. Ernst Marischka, 1955)

"In the first part of the acclaimed Sissi trilogy, Romy Schneider makes an impressive starring debut in the delightful Austrian comedy SISSI. The titular heroine is a preteen 19th century lass of noble birth, who charms everyone she meets. Especially impressed is young Franz Joseph, emperor the Hapsburg Empire. When Sissi comes of age, the emperor pursues the girl romantically, with fascinating results."

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Fear/Angst (dir. Gerald Kargl, 1983)

"Erwin Leder (Schindler’s List) plays a maniacal killer based on the real-life serial murderer Werner Kniesek. ANGST is a gorgeously stylized and shockingly visceral experience: a forgotten classic on the fringes of the slasher cycle."

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The Piano Teacher/La Pianiste (dir. Michael Haneke, 2001)

"In this riveting study of the dynamics of control, Academy Award-winning director Michael Haneke takes on Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek’s controversial 1983 novel about perverse female sexuality and the world of classical music. Haneke finds his match in Isabelle Huppert, who delivers an icy but quietly seething performance as Erika, a piano professor at a Viennese conservatory who lives with her mother in a claustrophobically codepen­dent relation­ship. Severely repressed, she satisfies her mas­ochistic urges only voyeuristically until she meets Walter (Benoît Magimel), a student whose desire for Erika leads to a destructive infatuation that upsets the careful equilibrium of her life. A critical breakthrough for Haneke, THE PIANO TEACHER — which won the Grand Prix as well as dual acting awards for its stars at Cannes — is a formalist masterwork that remains a shocking sensation."

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Revanche (dir. Götz Spielmann, 2008) 

"A gripping thriller and a tragic drama of nearly Greek proportions, REVANCHE is the stunning, international breakthrough of Austrian filmmaker Götz Spielmann. In a ragged section of Vienna, hardened ex-con Alex (the mesmerizing Johannes Krisch) works in a brothel, where he falls for Ukrainian hooker Tamara. Their desperate plans for escape unexpectedly intersect with the lives of a rural cop and his seemingly content wife. With meticulous, elegant direction, Spielmann creates a tense, existential, and surprising portrait of vengeance and redemption, and a journey into the darkest forest of human nature, in which violence and beauty exist side by side. Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 2009 Academy Awards."

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Museum Hours (dir. Jem Cohen, 2012)

"A mesmerizing tale of two adrift strangers who find refuge in Vienna's grand Kunsthistorisches Art Museum. A chance meeting sparks a deepening connection that draws them through the halls of the museum and the streets of the city. Nominated for Best Editing and the John Cassavetes Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards. Nominated for a SXGlobal Award at the SXSW Film Festival."

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