"The Seventh Continent" and Haneke's Mastery of Tension Building
A deeply bleak film that is most shocking in its relatability. Haneke builds subtle tension through claustrophobic documentation of conventional domestic routine. The right boxes are checked, the normal challenges of life are present but conquerable, and yet you sense something if off beneath the surface.
The adults in The Seventh Continent are able to keep their primal dissatisfaction with life subdued, but their adorable 8 year old feels something is off, specifically manifesting in her felt lack of love and attention. Seeing the mother in this film go through the motions of parenting, but unable to muster genuine warmth for her child is painfully grim. Even if things are going well for someone, the film represents a lived reality where they still can not escape the permanent erosion of joy. The gradual dulling of lust for life made manifest by a lifetime of conforming. The film seems to ask what essential parts of the human spirit can be broken simply by living in the world that we ourselves have built.
One particularly haunting element of the film is the repeated scenes where the daughter is put to sleep. She looks to her mother for comfort and warmth, and there’s clearly a space between them that can’t be traversed. She asks if the light can be left on, and every time her mother says “No, it’s late, go to sleep sweetie.” The final time you see her repeat this process, the daughter reaches for a stuffed lion behind her bed, and hugs it to finally find some comfort in the inanimate object that she couldn’t find in her own family.
Given that the movie spends the first two thirds building tension, the real master stroke is a final sequence that fully pays off all that build up. Without spoiling the dark twist of the film, I’ll just say that it contains one of the more incredibly shot and edited close-up sequences I’ve ever seen, one that would stand-alone as a visual art exposition all on its own. Laugh out loud humor, compulsive satisfaction, unrelenting bleakness, and tragic horror are all contained within. An incredible and original film that I can’t recommend highly enough, but be ready to be unnerved when the credits roll. The fact that this is based on a true story is all the more bone-chilling.
