HUNTERS IN THE SNOW

Michael Kreihsl's tragicomic elegy is a Portrait of the Artist as an Obselete Man. Franz, a meticulous copyist of old masterpieces at Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, finds himself out of step in a modern, consumerist society festooned with tacky billboards instead of Vermeers, strip-malls rather than Rembrandts, and fast-food chains and supermarket construction displacing frescoes. When his wife leaves, denying him any contact with his daughter, the beleaguered man's psyche begins to crumble into resentment and obsession, as he realizes that nobody is even bothering to gaze upon the paintings he so carefully recreates. Finally, Franz takes action. Raiding the museum's collection of antique arms and armor, he embarks on a quixotic crusade to take back the landscapes of Austria from the forces of commercial development and mass-production, with a sympathetic young cashier as his muse, chronicler and ally. In a society where art is undesirable, does that turn artists into outlaws? Kreihsl poses that question with crisp and expert brushstrokes. (In German with English subtitles)