The best word to describe this film is "pretentious". That means that it is giving itself airs, claiming to say something important that we lesser mortals have not yet appreciated, and, in so doing, boring us to bits. (POSSIBILITY OF SPOILERS) I understood the film in the following way: the invisible wall is just a way of telling us that the woman had made the decision to cut herself off from the rest of humankind so that whenever she seemed to be wanting to approach someone her inner fear sprang up to restrain her. She has chosen to live alone, having marked out a large swathe of beautiful barely inhabited highland country wherein to live and have her being. She doesn't want to die. Even though she is intensely depressive, and very boring to watch and listen to her low-pitched whine, she gets to know the local animals and is pretty good at keeping herself alive. She bonds with a dog. She apparently has some isolationist experiences which may be valuable for her mental state, though they sound weird or trite to the ordinary viewer. But everything she offers is manna from heaven for art-house patrons and the superior sort of film critic, who would probably quite enjoy watching paint dry. This is similar to that, but it is better in that the countryside and the photography are lovely and worse than that in that there is the additional element of the miserably depressed woman. The couple who bring her to her cottage play ghastly pop music very loudly in their car, presumably a ham-fisted way of telling us, perhaps through her perception, how boorish they (or all other humans) are. Whether we see it as catharsis or denouement or, as I do, merely as confirmation of her hatred of mankind, we see in the final moments of the film that the one human who somehow manages to penetrate the wall is cruel and vicious and the woman, whose hatred of mankind may be seen as being responsible for creating this figure in her world, expresses that hatred and takes her revenge by being extremely nasty to him. End of story. Yawn yawn.

"Die Wand" or "The Wall" was Austria's foreign language submission to the Academy Awards the year after "Amour" took home the big prize. This one failed in making the list, but it is nonetheless an excellent movie. I guess it did not really do well with awards bodies as even with the Austrain film Awards it did not score a single win when Ulrich Seidl's newest work dominated the categories. The movie is written and directed by Julian Pölsler based on Marlen Haushofer 1963 novel. The film runs for roughly 100 minutes and basically we only hear Gedeck narrate and see what she is narrating in these scenes. There are a handful more actors in this film, but all only very briefly while Gedeck (still very stunning at 50) is in it from start to finish. Her narration is actually based on diary entries. She is already further in the future than what she tells us about. She knows things we do not know. The plot is as simple as it is effective. A woman wants to spend some quiet time in the mountains, but she quickly realizes that there is an invisible wall there holding her prisoner. She can see other people through it, but they are not moving. Are they dead? Is she dead? Is she hallucinating or suffering from a psychological illness? What happened? One of the film's biggest strengths is that there is no solution in the end, so feel free to speculate and discuss all the way. It reminded me a bit of Jürgen Domian's book "The day the sun disappeared".12 minutes into the movie, the first crucial thing happens when her dog runs into the invisible wall. Yes, she has a dog, also a cow and a cat and also some young animals freshly born into this devastating scenario. They keep her company and possibly also keep her from going insane. Dog in a drama movie usually not a good prospect for the dog. Same here. The scene when she meets the man near the end is a very pivotal one. Pay attention to how she completely neglects approaching him in order to find a solution to her/their imprisonment. She did not think about it one second. All she thinks about is revenge for what he did to her companions. Listen closely to what she says about she got rid of his corpse compared to how she got rid of her dog. The tragedy is also referred to earlier in the film when she mentions her the death of her cat the first time that she was facing loss. Or how she talked about the death of her dog long before it happened in the film. Apart from that, what makes her interesting is also that we do not find out about who she was before coming to the mountainside. Also the audio is excellently done. There's is silence for most of the film and I really liked the contrast between the forced happy music Gedeck's character forces herself to listen to in the car and the general atmosphere.This is the kind of film which is always worth a watch, but much more effective on the big screen, so be grateful if you have a home cinema or managed to watch this at your local theater. All in all, it is a dramatic tale on isolation, but there are some horror elements too, like her nightmare. It's one of the most atmospheric and metaphorical (white crow) films I have seen lately and is highlighted by Gedeck's outstanding lead performance. And last but not least, it has an excellent ending as the movie ends when she has no sheets of paper anymore and so is forced to stop with her diary entries. Highly recommended.

THE WALL has a classic B-movie plot - a woman in rural Austria finds herself trapped behind an invisible wall with nothing but a dog for company - but, instead of making it a survival story, it uses it as the jumping off point for a slow, philosophical Euro movie. It's basically a one-woman show for Martina Gedeck, who carries this adaptation of the classic 1960s Austrian novel beautifully, with some assistance from the gorgeous Salzkammergut scenery. There's lots on the sheer isolation, lots on the relationship between man and beast, and a certain amount of symbolism but the film never goes overboard (although the appearance of someone later on suggests at least one rather weak feminist interpretation) and has an open ending.

This film will not appeal to everyone, but it certainly appealed to me. I'm a big fan of films and books depicting people in isolated, alienated circumstances, whether physically alone or within the boundaries of society. The Wall effectively portrays this unnamed woman's solitary confinement behind an invisible wall, while the world outside has stopped functioning as she knew it (the apocalyptic reason is never brought to light and is really not necessary, and the couple at the cabin is an effective symbol of the frozen state of time and circumstance). The woman develops a tender-hearted relationship with the animals she must nurture and care for as she learns to care for herself and survive. Certainly the viewer (like the reader) can draw many conclusions about the nature of solitude, isolation, alienation, and human psychology. The film invites that kind of thinking, if not open dialog. The woman experiences a wide range of emotion, desperation, yes, but also solace and even joy in her steadfast self reliance and the beauty of the world to which she is given access (scenes of the night sky are particularly moving). The outlook is ultimately a bleak one, though, and expect no clear resolution. This ambiguity may be off-putting to viewers who would prefer the woman find a way out, encounter a rescuer, or at least discover a partner in her exile (which makes one of the events in the film all the more horrific). If for no other reason, watch the film for the fine acting, exquisite scenery, and dramatic depiction of nature. I have not yet read the book on which the film is based, but am looking forward to doing so. I congratulate the filmmakers for bringing this story to a wider audience.