Sleep (Schlaf). Michael Venus, 2020.
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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2021. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 102 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Details: When Mona first comes to the village of Stainbach she encounters Lore in a shed cutting a piece of meat from a suspended carcass. This two-second act is not bloody, alarming or the focus of the scene.
The Prince and the Nature Girl (Nackt im Sommerwind). Doris Wishman, 1964.
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Edition screened: Included in AGFA Blu-ray set The Films of Doris Wishman: The Daylight Years. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 60 minutes.
Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Afire (Roter Himmel). Christian Petzold, 2023.
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Edition screened: Watched online. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 102 minutes.
Summary: Animals killed and suffering in a forest fire.
Details:
1) At 1:22:28 a baby boar runs down a hill with its back on fire. We then see what appears to be a small fox suffering and then die.
2) At 1:31:35 we see a dead baby deer(?) in the burnt woods.
Diary of a Lost Girl (Tagebuch einer Verlorenen). G.W. Pabst, 1929.
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Edition screened: Masters of Cinema Blu-ray #097, released 2014. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 79 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Phantom. F.W. Murnau, 1922.
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Edition screened: Eureka! Masters of Cinema Blu-ray #14a included in the Early Murnau: Five Films 1921-1925 box set released 2016. German intertitles with English subtitles, no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 119 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Tartuffe (Herr Tartüff). F.W. Murnau, 1925.
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Edition screened: Eureka! Masters of Cinema Blu-ray #143 included in the Early Murnau: Five Films 1921-1925 box set released 2016. German intertitles with English subtitles, no dialogue track. Runtime approximately 63 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin). Wim Wenders, 1987.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #490, released 2009. German language. Runtime approximately 127 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls). Michael Haneke, 1994.
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Included in Criterion Blu-ray set #1163 Michael Haneke: Trilogy, released 2023. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 99 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Benny’s Video. Michael Haneke, 1992.
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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray set #1163 Michael Haneke: Trilogy, released 2023. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 110 minutes.
Summary: Repeated video of a pig being killed.
Details:
1) The film opens with a video of a pig being led outdoors and killed with a captive bolt pistol. We then see this repeated in slow motion, both takes completed at 2:13.
2) The same video sequence of initial killing followed by slow motion killing and death, 23:00-23:54.
The point of this website is to identify scenes of animal abuse, see above. We also talk about film in general, especially how people don’t get it. And manohboy do people not get Benny’s Video. Almost any ‘review’ boils it down to Haneke warning us that young people will commit violent acts due to what they’ve learned from watching violent movies. What a noble and unique observation, except for the tiny details that the film is made by Michael “Wow this guy is smart and wow his films are violent” Haneke, and that this is not Haneke’s point.
Let’s review the plot: Teenager Benny is devoted to renting videos and learning to make his own videos. We see him rent and watch a variety of garbage popular films, the longest sequence being some ridiculous movie where a zombie has highjacked a car and is terrorizing the driver with zombie antics.
Benny’s well-to-do urban professional parents have a hobby farm la-di-da, and the young man has made a video of his father supervising the murder of the poor pig.
The teen has stolen the bolt pistol and videotapes himself killing a friend in the way the pig was killed. Then a surprise ending, The End.
So: Is Benny imitating a car-jacking zombie? Is he imitating some terrorist attack, or Charles Bronson blowtorching whatever? Or even reckless or drunk driving? No. He is imitating his parents. His parents demonstrate unprovoked murder of the innocent on video, and the young man is imitating the exact source that society says he should emulate: his successful, educated parents.
Michael Haneke: Trilogy. Michael Haneke, 1989-1994.
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Edition screened: Criterion 3-Blu-ray set #1163, released 2023. German language with English subtitles. Combined runtime of three feature films approximately 317 minutes.
Summary: The Seventh Continent and Benny’s Video include prolonged scenes of animals dying through human actions. 71 Fragments has no particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
It always is interesting to hear Haneke discuss his work, including this “Glaciation Trilogy.” The Criterion set includes several director interviews and similar featurettes along with the films:
The Seventh Continent (1989)
Benny’s Video (1992)
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994)
The Seventh Continent (Der siebente Kontinent). Michael Haneke, 1989.
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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray set #1163 Michael Haneke: Trilogy, released 2023. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 108 minutes.
Summary: Prolonged scenes of domestic fish dying out of water.
Details: As part of the family’s plan to demolish everything in the house, the father smashes a very large aquarium. The water and a dozen or so beautiful exotic-looking fish spill onto the debris-covered floor.
1) Focused shots of individual fish struggling on the floor, 1:25:35-1:26:18.
2) After a short interlude of the daughter’s upset, focused shots of the fish gasping as they expire, 1:27:36-1:28:18.
The Women of Inferno Island (Gefangene Frauen/Caged Women). Erwin C. Dietrich, 1980.
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Edition screened: Full Moon DVD, released 2018. English dub over original German. Runtime approximately 80 minutes.
Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film. 2.5/5❤
A Film Unfinished. Yael Hersonski, 2010.
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Edition screened: Oscilloscope DVD #025, released 2011. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 90 minutes.
Summary: A rabbi slaughters a chicken, 1:01:48 - 1:02:19. This is depicted in a calm, antique way without gore.
This important release also includes Billy Wilder’s famous Death Mills, a short film made for the U.S. government as a document of Nazi atrocities.
The Strange Little Cat (Das merkwürdige Kätzchen). Ramon Zürcher, 2013.
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Edition screened: KimStim DVD, released 2015. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 72 minutes.
Summary: A few threatening gestures toward the house cat early in the film, but no harm or mistreatment to the animals.
Details: This excellent dinner drama focuses on the psyche of the mother during a family gathering in a small apartment. A few curious moments with the cat depict odd impulses that can be had by a person under stress, rather than any real threat to the animal.
The cat is not strange in any way, and Director comments during a Q&A clarify that the German word merkwürdiege in the title implies something like “singular” or “noteworthy” more than the American usage of strange.
I Am Guilty. Christoph Hochhäusler, 2005.
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Edition screened: TLA DVD, released 2007. German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 87 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Alpine Fire (Höhenfeuer). Fredi M. Murer, 1986.
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Edition screened: Not viewed; submitted by a kind reader. Swiss German language. Runtime approximately 119 minutes.
Summary: At the very beginning of the film, a brother and sister pick up dead mice in traps from the ground.
In a Year with 13 Moons (In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden). Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978.German language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 124 minutes.
Our friend Edward reports a long and especially graphic slaughterhouse scene, 18:33-23:52. This difficult-to-sit-through scene is most unfortunate in an otherwise favorite film from the Fassbinder catalogue.
The Road Trilogy. Wim Wenders, 1967-1976.
