Superbly handled WWII/coming-of-age story from Austrian writer/director Adrian Goiginger plays out like a real-life fable. (Apparently it’s glancingly based on a true family incident.) Young Franz, part of a large family barely eking out a life in the countryside, is indentured to a prosperous farm in a distant county, only leaving upon gaining his maturity at 17 after a decade. Homeless, jobless, without prospects, he joins the Austrian military not long before Nazi annexation. Having grown up without social skills in the basics of personal interaction, he’s a well-behaved, dutiful odd man out in most situations. But things change when he comes across, and adopts, an orphaned fox pup, going thru the first year of war with the animal increasingly attached to him . . . and vice versa. Fascinating & believable, with Maximilian Reinwald a decade too old as the young soldier, but very fine nonetheless, Goiginger shows stunning control in giving us just the amount of information needed to intuit narrative and emotional content, allowing it to resonant by withholding step-by-step exposition. There’s something musical in this approach; like a baroque composer who has us extrapolate chordal progressions out of a single musical line. (Cinematic continuo.) Nazi themes are largely kept in the background, though Goiginger drops in a deadly one perfectly. And if you think there’s not going to be a devastating separation worthy of a ‘50s Disney boy-and-his-dog film, you’ve got another think coming.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: A long scene for father & son where the boy’s curiosity & fear of death is explained thru a folk tale alone makes the film a must.
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