‘Happy End’ at Thame Cinema

Happy End is the latest film to be screened by Thame Cinema 4 All, this coming Friday, April 13, at 8pm. The film was made in France 2017,  and is a 15 certificate, It’s Directed by Michael Haneke and features Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Mathieu Kassovitz, Fantine Harduin, Franz Rogowski, Loubna Abidar and Toby Jones.

We ought to start by saying that the title of this film is, to say the least, ironic. There’s not a lot of joy to be had here, and precious little redemption, but there is a great deal of the darkest social satire and occasional streaks of gallows humour. Celebrated Austrian auteur Michael Haneke returns to his perennial pre-ocuppations in this latest film: the moral corruption of the haute bourgeois European; families who live together but are estranged from each other; technological surveillance; the legacies of colonial histories.

Huppert is Anne Laurent, now the head of the family construction firm having taken over from her father Georges (Tritingnant) who is in the early stages of dementia. They share a vast mansion – more a familial compound – with Anne’s brother Thomas and his new wife and child, soon to be joined by the daughter of Thomas’ first marriage, Eve, whose mother is in a coma following an unexplained overdose of prescription medication. The clan also consists of Anne’s deadbeat son – whose ineptitude and neglect has caused a catastrophic accident on a family building site, and the threat of a massive civil suit – and Rachid and Jamila, the Moroccan servants, granted occupancy of a cramped domestic space, and subjected to casual racism. And of course, there are secrets galore, often secrets recorded in social media, or tracked by the slightly disturbing Eve, who navigates her world via the screen of her iPhone.

The action takes place in Calais: beyond the doors of the gilded Laurent mansion, desperate refugees gather and await an attempt on the tunnel. Haneke treats the Laurents and their ilk with his typical brutal clarity, his trademark long static shots that often feel uncomfortably long are well suited to this unsparing critical scrutiny. And he has much to say about the nature of looking, watching and surveillance, and the fact that in spite of our technological narcissism, we remain incapable of seeing ourselves. An uneasy and brilliant satire. View trailer here.