Synopsis
71 scenes revolving around multiple Viennese residents who are by chance involved with a senseless gun slaughter on Christmas Eve.
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Cast
- Gabriel Cosmin UrdesMarian Radu
- Lukas MikoMax
- Otto GrünmandlTomek
- Anne BennentInge Brunner
- Udo SamelPaul Brunner
- Dorothee HartingerKristina
- Branko SamarovskiHans
- Claudia MartiniMaria
- Georg Friedrich
- Alexander PschillHanno
Recommendations
- 88
Chicago Tribune
An eliptical puzzle that comes together beautifully in the last five minutes. Challenging, disturbing and at times brilliant. [21 Oct 1994] - 83
The A.V. Club
The trilogy's conclusion, 71 Fragments, doesn't quite fit the glaciation theme, but it does show Haneke's willingness to experiment with the form and challenge the way audiences receive information. The film's radical deconstruction of various narrative strands questions the way such information is delivered and received. - 80
The Hollywood Reporter
Showing that there is both rhyme and madness to seemingly unfragmented everyday life, screenwriter-director Michael Haneke has created a pointillistic portrait of terror, presenting a number of tiny, mundane incidents that eventually enable us to connect the dots. - 70
Variety
Intellectually demanding and non-commercial film should be embraced in the festival and arthouse circuits by film students and viewers interested in postmodern, deconstructionist cinema. - 70
Village Voice
The film's Endsville, when we reach it, is almost an anticlimax, thanks to the masterfully orchestrated ensemble acting and the countless dramatic mini-explosions unleashed along the way. - 70
The New York Times
An icy-cool study of violence both mediated and horribly real. - 60
Chicago Reader
Americans desensitized to senseless violence may find the subject matter almost banal, and the interspersed news footage of armed conflict from around the world feels like a rhetorical device. But the coldly telegraphic structure--a series of 71 blackouts following the four strangers to their deaths--yields some striking moments. - 50
Slant Magazine
Format owes much to Short Cuts, but Haneke’s wintry vision lacks Altman’s sense of life overflowing beyond the frame.
