Shot in glorious black'n'white, the story is set amongst puritanical, sexually-repressed Protestants in a small northern German hamlet circa 1913, just before the outbreak of World War 1. The film's narrator (Jacobi) – who we see in younger days as the local schoolteacher (Christian Friedel) – introduces the story, stating that it might “clarify things that happened later in our country”. What unfolds is a series of malicious, largely anonymous attacks, some simple acts of revenge, others bizarre, ritualistic acts of torture with no clear motivation. Each act leaves the stony-faced inhabitants of this town that should have been called Malice, well, stony-faced. And tight-lipped.
Not that there isn't seething anger behind those picket fences, especially amongst the children of the ferociously strict pastor (Klaussner), and the young, sexually-abused daughter of the town's doctor (Bock). The latter, a widower, dismisses his neighbouring midwife as his lover of some years with enough contempt and vitriol to fuel a thousand ritual murders.
THE VERDICT: It's all presented calmly by Haneke's sharply cold eye, the viewer left to come to his or her own conclusions about the motivations and the individuals responsible for the sordid crimes being committed amidst this isolated community. Think Twin Peaks meets The Village, as directed by Ingmar Bergman. With a little help from a young, wide-eyed Leni Riefenstahl. That your initial curiousity slowly turns to fascination is testament to Haneke's skills as a storyteller, but, as with his 2005 offering, Cache, there will be those who will walk out with an itch this filmmaker simply won't let them scratch.
RATING: 4/5
Review By Paul Byrne