Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I'm a big fan of Haneke, but this movie was just boring as hell. I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn't. Huppert is great, though. Although, I would've liked to see her more, rather than the whole bunch of random characters who aren't interesting at all.

In an undefined time, the environment has been totally destroyed and now the water is contaminated and the animals have been burned. Georges Laurent (Daniel Duval) travels with her wife Anne Laurent (Isabelle Huppert), their teenage daughter Eva (Anaïs Demoustier) and their son Ben (Lucas Biscombe) from the city to their cabin in the countryside. On the arrival, they find that intruders have broken in the house, and one stranger kills George.Anne, Eva and Ben wander through the village asking for shelter and supplies for their acquaintances, but they refuse to help them. They reach an abandoned barn and spend the night inside. On the next morning, they meet a teenage boy and they walk together to a train station, where they find other survivors. Together, they wait for the train expecting to go to a better place in the middle of the chaos. "Le temps du loup", a.k.a. "Time of the Wolf" is a pessimist and depressive view by Michael Haneke of a society without rules, basically the end of the civilization. The story begins with the uncomfortable violence of "Funny Games", with the stranger unexpectedly shooting Georges. The plot is totally different from the post-apocalyptic view of Hollywood movies and there are scenes hard to be seen. Isabelle Huppert and Anaïs Demoustier have extraordinary performances. Hope that the world never comes to this point, probably is what many viewers will think watching this movie. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): Not Available

Drab, pointless, humorless, dreary, are some words that come to mind quickly. The first ten minutes are shock cinema at its finest, but after that it's a more realistic-than-thou, account of an end of the world scenario. What conclusions does it come to? People are mean, racist, xenophobic, and greedy, without social structures to guide them, but maybe, just maybe, if they cling to their humanity and mercy, things could get better, the world can be reborn, etc.The little boy character was trite, running away, at just the right moment when the paced lagged, cus thats what traumatized little boys in these kinds of movies do. There's some nice cinematography, of darkness, with some fires burning, not very subtle symbolism, but nothing in this was. It's less pedantic than "Funny Games", but not as clever. It's bleak, and desperate, and dismal. A live horse is killed on screen, for our viewing pleasure! At least John Waters had his animals f*&$ed before he slaughtered them.Does just being the opposite of the way, Hollywood would film something, make it automatically artful and meaningful? Sure it's more realistic than Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, but it's themes of desperation, human redemption, and survival, are the same. Just less entertaining. A real life disaster, would indeed probably go down with people crowded in barns, hating each other trying to make due, but so what? That's just a premise, not a story. The final scene of the train in motion, suggests, things get better, but as to why is just as mysterious as what caused the catastrophe in the first place. And ultimately, just as purposeful, to begin and end the movie, that's all.This wasn't very original, provocative, or challenging. It's intense at times but mostly lethargic, and begs by its somberness to be taken seriously, without anything at all serious to contribute.

The film is full of references to Andrei Tarkovski's films. The apocalyptic tone of the film is the same than in "the sacrifice". Some scenes of the forest are very similar to the forests we see in "Ivan's childhood" or in "Zerkalo" (the mirror). The little brother looks like Ivan while the lonely boy who stays in the forest easily evokes "Stalker"'s main character. I would be tempted to say that the mother (Isabelle Huppert) who fights to survive with her two children also evokes the mother in "Zerkalo". I am sure that if you look with closer attention you can find some more parallelism. The irony is that in Tarkovski's films, water is everywhere, not in "le temps du loup" ...