"71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance"
1994
Directed by Michael Haneke

The third film in Michael Haneke's provocative "glaciation trilogy" (Benny's Video, The Seventh Continent) is a profoundly disquieting reflection on the numbing nature of modern life. The formally rigorous work is comprised of 71 film tableaux, including clips of an Austrian student's shooting spree, a homeless man's travels through Vienna, and a young couple's struggles with their newly adopted daughter. Each of these snippets is jumbled and presented out of context, with the persistent presence of a TV newscast shadowing the events in an eerie, foreboding manner. Reminiscent of Haneke's excellent, later work Code Unknown, this film remains "one of the most challenging narrative works of the 1990s" (Senses of Cinema). French with English subtitles.  95 minutes.