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Some directors vanish and you never think of them again. And then there is Michael Haneke, whose stark and serrated filmmaking has been much missed in the eight years since his last project, Happy End. The conclusion seems obvious, and not just because of that mordant title. Haneke is now 83. Last year, his occasional star Isabelle Huppert didn’t demur when the auteur was described to her as retired.
You suspect Haneke would greatly dislike any hint of sentiment. Still, if that is all there is, it is some consolation to find a retrospective of his films coming to UK cinemas. The programme begins with a reissue of The Piano Teacher (2001), in which Huppert gives one of her most hard-to-shake performances. As often with both director and actor, appearances are eerily tranquil: Huppert’s Vienna music professor lives quietly with her elderly mother. But a murk of self-loathing and sexual masochism lies beneath, brought to the surface by an affair with a student. The film still holds the same fraught charge it did a quarter of a century ago.
Truth be told, though — and again, Haneke would insist on it — I’m still more eager to find if the same is true of his two Paris masterworks, the fractured Code Unknown, and spellbinding Hidden. Haneke’s signature will forever be the static camera, held at a coolly watchful distance from the characters. It will be a certain kind of fun to see the world through it again.
★★★★★
In UK cinemas from June 6
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