Le mur invisible

A woman, a dog, one of the most beautiful places of the world. It's hard to say more about this movie without saying too much.

It has a very well crafted, tight script, well chosen music and great cinematography, both in plain light and in deep darkness, in open land and closed quarters.

There is no waste in this film, everything fits. The acting is nuanced, controlled. The sense of menace is achieved with lighting and camera work. No false scares, no misleadings, no cheap shocks.

This tale of survival and endurance, ultimately about the meaning of humanity, is a moving masterpiece that will stay with me a long time.

Confusing, narrated, strange, and difficult to follow. Too many questions regarding the actions of the main character. I don't know about you, but I'd have done so many other, different, and direct things than this main character in order to extract myself from my current situation. The wall: did the river run through it? Was it like a dome? Was it bulletproof? Would it be possible to dig beneath it? Were animals affected by it? Maybe I should just write a story about it... no, that would be boring. In order to change or alter my situation, I would have to do something different each day. The lead and only character was satisfied with her predicament. I do wonder, however, about the end result.

This is a film that has left such an impression on me that I was very curious what other viewers interpretations of it were. I felt the beauty and despair of loneliness. The connection humans can have with nature and above all... animals, our need for them not only to fill our void socially and emotionally, but as creatures to sustain our life in all ways. Even if to give us a purpose.

The irony that she was there on a hunting trip with friend that she obviously was not partaking in, but had probably not thought much about . I appreciated that she really understood that hunting should only be for food and could not understand how any being could take pleasure out of death of an animal.

The vivid beauty of Austria was captivating. This is a beautiful film that I will never quite forget. It has reminded me of how strong humans can be when they have to be to survive, how fragile we are, and how our brains have the capability to adapt to situations that are unexplainable when all feels hopeless.

What a beautiful story this is. I can understand why Julian Pölsler wanted to film his favorite book of Marlen Haushofer, a book that I've now added to my to read list.

The scenery of Austria is so beautiful. Experiencing the country through all the seasons would have been enough for me to watch the movie. But the movie is so much more than just beautiful scenery. The plot made me profoundly think about humanity, nature, life... and if a movie succeeds in doing that it deserves merit. I also like that multiple interpretations can apply to the movie, since it has a certain symbolical feel to it, rather than being a science fiction or utopian/dystopian story. I for example see a lot of parallels with someone who has a depression, not being able to fight an invisible wall, struggling to do everyday tasks in order to survive, feeling alienated.

It's great how the connectedness with nature is illustrated. How we depend on nature and how nature depends on us. How we humans are gods who are able to choose to kill or let live, who can choose to kill the very nature that makes us survive.

Perhaps for people who have read the book, the movie doesn't add more than beautiful scenery and a good acting performance by Martina Gedeck and not to forget dog Luchs, but for me it's definitely worth the 8*.

It's complete art-house fare but since the source material is one of Austria's great novels of the 20th century (it was written in the early 1960s) they gave this film a semi-wide release here in Austria. It's a last-woman-on-Earth-story - think about Robinson Crusoe, The Road, I am Legend, but very naturalistic except for the wall which traps the protagonist in a secluded alpine area. It was a bit toned down from the book - some of the more violent or disgusting passages were missing, I guess not to alienate the audience too much since the story is intense enough already. This seemed to work as WOM is quite good, everybody was discussing it on our way out. My son (who didn't know the book) was impressed too. Also left out were any references to the cold war which were not that important in the book to begin with; here the wall is more like a natural catastrophe and the story is much more timeless this way. From a technical POV this was excellent, filmed with a RED-to-35mm and much natural light I think. Most of the crew hail from TV productions but it's clearly visible how much fun they had with the wide format. Sound design was good too. Music was sparse, a few Bach sonatas. And I liked how they didn't color-grade the thing to death as happens sometimes (The Road, Children of Men ...) - the story is bleak enough without much fiddling - we get the message. The landscape, wood and winter sequences are just beautiful. Highly recommended if you're able to see this. Maybe it gets a foreign run; there's nearly no dialogue, most spoken text is just off-screen-quoting from her diary so subtitles or dubbing won't really take away much.