This is a common problem. How do you make a film about distant people without being too distant to your audience? Michael Haneke didn’t solve this riddle and that’s what prevents Fraulein from being a great movie instead of a good movie. What works is the world he’s created — post-war West Germany getting pumped with massive doses of Amercan culture. Returning after a ten year stint in a Soviet POW camp, ten-yard stare Hans spends most of his time making models out of matchsticks. His wife, happily schtupping a French wrestler (?), feels something about the return of Hans. We, the audience, aren’t really privileged to that info. She works at a movie theater, though, so the German and American films act as something of a Greek chorus to the plot machinations of the troubled extended family. Ronald Reagan in the film Law and Order is a particularly nice touch. The movie ends with allusions to the tales of Baron Munchausen – a switch from B&W to color and intimations of multiple homicides, though Ann and I couldn’t tell if they were joking or not. In all, strange flick.
