This was obviously a very personal project for director Goiginger, filming some episodes out of the life of his great-grandfather (whom we get to hear for a few seconds just before the end credits). While most of the "story" happens during Franz's time in the Wehrmacht during WW2, it's not really a war story - it's a story about poverty and speechlessness. Many children had to leave their homes because the small mountain farms were not able to sustain the families, so Franz's fate was in fact pretty common in Austria (my father-in-law and my grandfather had a similar upbringing). The only scenes where grown-up Franz lets down his defenses are the ones with the fox, and then there's the last scene where he comes home, learns of his father's death and the effects a letter from the front had on the old man ... strong stuff, I don't want to go into details but that was a perfectely handled and hard-to-bear coda.
This movie is not for the faint-of-heart ... no, there's not much violence, and nobody is dying on screen, but the emotional impact is powerful and there's no levity at all. As to the acting, Franz was perfectly played by Viennese actor Simon Morzé who really buried himself in the dialect and taciturn character - all other characters are just support, played naturalistic and effective. And the foxes (of course, they had to train more than one for the scenes) were perfect, too, no wrong notes here.
The music was unobtrusive, flowing with the scenes but never taking over. The images were cut to 4:3, with rounded corners, so the movie's optic recalls those photographs from early compact cameras - the scenes from Franz's childhood were probably even colourgraded a bit to strengthen the effect, at least I got that impression.
Overall, highly recommended, one of the best movies out of Austria from recent years!
This movie is not for the faint-of-heart ... no, there's not much violence, and nobody is dying on screen, but the emotional impact is powerful and there's no levity at all. As to the acting, Franz was perfectly played by Viennese actor Simon Morzé who really buried himself in the dialect and taciturn character - all other characters are just support, played naturalistic and effective. And the foxes (of course, they had to train more than one for the scenes) were perfect, too, no wrong notes here.
The music was unobtrusive, flowing with the scenes but never taking over. The images were cut to 4:3, with rounded corners, so the movie's optic recalls those photographs from early compact cameras - the scenes from Franz's childhood were probably even colourgraded a bit to strengthen the effect, at least I got that impression.
Overall, highly recommended, one of the best movies out of Austria from recent years!