8th PCI Film Series – Happy End

The Postcolonial Studies Initiative is happy to announce its 8th film series with a selection of films, shown monthly, that draw on a variety of different contexts in our postcolonial world. Please join us for our upcoming screening with the film Happy End, introduced by Milica Trakilović. Happy End is a drama about a family set in Calais with the European refugee crisis as the backdrop.

Happy End dissects an unhappy, self-deceiving family. And yet Jean-Louis Trintignant, as a patriarch this time slipping into dementia himself, has a beautifully intimate conversation with his 12-year-old granddaughter Eve (Fantine Harduin). Even if, this still being Haneke, she’s probably a murderer, and their heart to heart is about poison and suicide. “He’s a more humanistic director than he seems,” Huppert has noted. “There is of course no sentimentality, but there is a belief in mankind.”

“It’s a North-South conflict,” Haneke’s says. “The rich countries against the poor. That’s been confirmed categorically, since Code Unknown. Refugees aren’t a simple problem, and there are no simple solutions, but a solution has to be found. The problem is that, for a lot of people at the moment, the solution is a shift to the right. I’m especially sceptical of comparisons with the 1930s. But this current atmosphere, with everyone dancing on the edge of the volcano, has a parallel there. Because in my youth, immediately after the war, everybody thought that things would get better – because everything could only get better, after that. But now everybody thinks that things can only get worse, and that is a parallel to the situation before World War Two.” (The Guardian)

Practical information
Happy End (2017, dir. Michael Haneke, France, Germany, Austria)
Date: 11 March
Time: 17.15- 20.00
Location: Entrance at Muntstraat 2A, MCW-LAB (Grote zaal KNG20)

Admission is free of charge. However, due to safety regulations, maximum capacity of the room is 80 people. No exceptions are made. First come, first seated.