The 7th Continent (The Seventh Continent)

Haneke's first feature is a stylistic take on the anguish of boredom. The film follows three years in the lives of a professional middle class couple searching vainly for an escape from their stifling complacency, and their emotionally troubled daughter who fakes blindness to get attention at school. Haneke uses recurring images of a far away Australian beach as a symbol of the impossibility of their persistent fantasies of escape. A visually compelling study of the deadending repetition of modern life and the horrible effect it can have on ordinary people.