Not Reconciled(Nicht versöhnt)

Straub once described this as ‘a film about Nazism without mentioning the word Hitler or concentration camps.’ A demolition expert’s unabashed recollections about his role in WWII stand in contrast with his architect father’s memories of WWI, during which his wife (played by Huillet) was ostracised for calling the militaristic emperor a fool. Now she returns to seek revenge against the establishment as ‘only violence helps where violence rules,’ as the secondary title suggests. Channelling the spirit of their hero Robert Bresson, Huillet-Straub transformed Heinrich Böll’s novel about a bourgeois family’s decades-spanning fortunes into a tapestry of abruptly truncated conversations and sudden flashbacks. But the fire endures, as they picture a society yet to reconcile itself with its sorry past and its bleak future. Screening with Machorka-Muff.

Cahier du Cinéma Top Ten: #3