With a serial killer loose amid the general chaos & political upheaval of post-WWI Vienna, returning war vet/released P.O.W. Peter Perg (Murathan Muslu), a police detective before he enlisted, is unofficially assigned to find the man before he kills again. A good setup for a dark thriller in this Austrian production that unfortunately bogs down from too many coincidences and improbabilities. (The victims not random but conveniently linked to Perg’s wartime past.) But within this plot, twists come honestly (especially the big reveal at the climax), and most of the tasty, well-chosen cast give off good period flavor. Only female lead Liv Lisa Fries, division forensic doctor, is coddled with ‘relatable’ contemporary touches as a sop to modern tastes & sensibilities. But the real excitement lies in a physical production that’s barely ‘physical’ at all. Instead, most backgrounds & streets are layered into the composition via CGI realizations used not merely to augment reality, but to trade naturalism for German-style Expressionism. As if the old UFA studio æsthetic of Fritz Lang & F.W. Murnau had suddenly acquired computer assisted art design. A cityscape alive with instability and canted angles that might collapse at any moment. Yet apparently unchanged by centuries of use. A rivetingly suggestive look totally appropriate for the dissolving society norms threatening a republic that can’t find its footing. It’s really something to see.
DOUBLE-BILL: Erich Maria Remarque, of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT fame, wrote a near-sequel about post-war defeated German soldiers in THE ROAD BACK. Something of a film maudit when James Whale made it in 1937, the 100" film was progressively butchered and refitted with broad humor (largely to get German Export approval) down to about 70". Recently restored to something like Whale’s original cut, three problems remain: A first act that can neither find nor hold a tone; a lousy leading man in John ‘Dusty’ King (soon headed to cowboy fare); and hard to find decent copies (a complete cut on youtube looks awful). Wait for better editions to show up as the film grows in interest & confidence as it plays, with powerful sequences on many of the same issues found in HINTERLAND.
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