Direction: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Country: Austria
Hinterland, a post-war detective thriller set in the early ‘20s, resembles the old classics, but not in the visual department. It was shot with almost surreal images, immersing the viewer into a viscerally distorted world that borrows from the German expressionism’s tonal palette. The film, anchored by a solid performance by Murathan Muslu and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky (The Counterfeiters, 2007), turns into a whodunnit mystery at some point. Although its visual eccentricity might feel dystopically weird for some viewers, this is the kind of story that could be found in the filmographies of Orson Welles and Andrzej Wajda. Yet, I’m pretty convinced the result would be very different, for better.
The story traces the path of Lieutenant Peter Berg (Muslu), a former criminologist made a POW, who returns to Vienna seven years after fighting for the emperor and fatherland against the Russian troops. Berg left his family and his job in the police to go to the battlefield, and everyone blames him for that, including his former colleague Victor Renner (Marc Limpach) and Dr. Theresa Körner (Liv Lisa Fries), a forensic pathologist who will help him solve a spree of brutal murders related to his military unit.
This is a gut-wrenching look at the depressing and vicious ramifications of war. The suspense increases gradually and new discoveries are unveiled at every step of the investigation, culminating with a decent twist.
