Hinterland (2021)

Review of the film "Hinterland: Sin City" - an expressionist detective story about the traumas of the First World War

New painting by Stefan Ruzowitzky, author of The Counterfeiters.

A group of Austrian soldiers return home after two years in a Russian camp. Upon arrival at home, a new country awaits them: instead of the once monarchy, a republic, instead of a majestic capital, a dilapidated city. Most of the military ends up in a homeless shelter, and Perge, heading to the family, finds an empty apartment. While the hero deals with personal problems, a bloodthirsty criminal appears in Vienna, killing former soldiers. Perge will have to join a team of police officers to track down a mysterious killer and uncover his motives.

The time in which the film takes place is 1920. German and Austrian soldiers returned to their families, disappointed by the peace and traumatized by the horrors of war. On this basis, expressionism arose in art - a natural reaction to the squalor and demoralization of the early 20th century. Alienation and despair, anxiety and fear, pain and screams are motifs inherent not only in the paintings of artists of that time, but also in directors and representatives of expressionist cinema. Drawing on iconic German-language cinema, especially Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Stefan Ruzowitzky paints a distorted picture for his visual style. Here, skewed buildings, claustrophobic streets, and jagged corners reflect the psychological state of the protagonist, who does not fit into an environment alien to him. Brutal murders are committed in the city, but the background of the story is not the horrors on the streets of Vienna, but the detective investigation itself. The key here is the barely pronounced emotional coloring of the era, expressed in the urban landscape.

The characters of "Hinterland" are no less interesting than the scenery surrounding them. In a sense, they are not real people, but represent one or another worldview generated by time. This is best seen in the example of two heroes. Perg is an echo of the past of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, for which reality has become too uncomfortable. The buildings around the man are necessarily disproportionate to the body, as if his figure exists separately from space. Kerner, on the other hand, is the next milestone in history, where, as a result of the emergence of the republic, new opportunities for women have appeared. We also note that the girl is always dressed in white - the central color of the modern flag of the country, which personifies the symbol of the freedom of the Austrian people after the overthrow of the monarchy.

Hinterland: Sin City is that kind of film, brimming with carefully crafted details. Analyzing this turns out to be a more immersive experience than actually watching a movie. Indeed, behind the smallest elements of Ruzowitzky, the thread of the story is lost, and the denouement of the detective story does not evoke the necessary feeling of catharsis. Ultimately, the picture, based on the concept of expressionism, in a sense, forgets about the main properties of the chosen trend - oppressive reflection and introspection.

This article was sponsored by Kellie Cyr