Translated by Kaohsiung Film Festival Originally published in KFF Festival Guide (2023)
Relative to her identity as a director, I seem to appreciate Jessica HAUSNER even more deeply as an exceptional art director. That was how I felt the first time I watched LittleJoe. The film is like an exquisitely tasteful gallery: a blend of musical hues and colorful melodies; exotic music with vibrant sound clusters and orchestrations — and striking flowers in a cold laboratory.
Indeed, composed and carefully crafted camera choices (including angles and shot lengths), as well as lucid and metaphoric use of colors, are outstanding tools that she uses. As she matures, she has been able to find balance between clarity and metaphor, ensemble and individual, satire and melodrama, all while maintaining a certain ambiguity. In Lourdes, in particular, this balance reaches its peak, imbuing a sense of lightness.
For instance, she often uses ensemble reaction shots to indirectly depict the main character. Yet, the subtle sense of detachment she creates in Lourdes is not quite paranoid horror or absurd irony, but rather, achieves an “understanding" of the “incomprehensible". The film evokes the fantastic naturalism of Lucrecia MARTEL, but also harbors the mocking and questioning tones of Éric ROHMER or Michael HANEKE. Her choice of an ambiguous ending is perhaps also a softening of the “nothingness" that customarily concluded her previous films.
Ironically, while Little Joe takes “nothingness" to the extreme and showcases highly artificial designs, it somehow feels even more captivating. This reflects the contradiction in her works: Are her works that are “less like her" more watchable, or are her works that are “very much her" more interesting?
Looking back at her filmography, it is not difficult to discern recurring themes and elements. As a filmmaker, Jessica HAUSNER’s traits have gradually become clear yet awkward, making it almost evident that there is a certain “proxy" in her works: ordinarily good and ordinarily bad elites / good girls from Catholic families. Bad behavior often stems from rebellion caused by hurt feelings. But they are unable to find healthier ways of taking care of themselves, creating a vicious cycle. That hurt primarily comes from paternal authority (including religious faith, parenting, school education), its rigid traditions, and its mechanisms of exclusion. However, when the girls rebel or adopt another form of authority (for example, the embrace of revolutionary doctrines from a new teacher in her new film Club Zero), it often ends in “nothingness".
“Nothingness" lies at the unique core of HAUSNER’s films. At first glance, each film engages in debate on different issues, yet at the end, there is often no solution, suggesting a general apathy towards the world. As depicted in Little Joe, this kind of overwhelming indifference is almost hopeless, powerless, indemonstrable — and can only be accepted.
As an example, in her most “romantic" film, Amour Fou, the debate revolves around whether or not understanding equates to not loving. Conversely, the assumption that one can truly understand another’s obsessive love is so absurdly comical, so how can it be considered genuine love? On the other hand, while Club Zero brings together numerous elements and explores more contemporary issues, the same core attitude remains: Beneath the veneer of the “tolerance" of parents lies neglect and indifference. At the same time, students blindly believe in unbridled progressivism, lacking room for thought and reflection. In these circumstances, they feel a lack of understanding for the world they are in, for others, and even for their own behavior.
Through this, a vivid ray of orange-red emerges, possessing the potential to transform into different variations. It is the shyness and ambition of desiring to understand the world in her short film Flora and in Lourdes. It is the commotion of Lovely Rita, the alienated vitality of Little Joe. In HAUSNER’s films, the color red symbolizes that “variation is life". Though it may ultimately end in nothingness, in her works, it represents something that can still ignite sparks in an apathetic world.
HAUSNER reminds one of The Souvenir director Joanna HOGG, but when exploring familial difficulties brought by issues such as class and taste, their response towards the ever-present “artistic good kids who want to be bad" are strikingly different. HOGG wears it like a second skin — even her so-called “metanarrative" is as thin as cicada wings. HAUSNER, meanwhile, cannot help but feel like she is donning a straitjacket. All she can do is illuminate her orange-red blade, its cold texture radiating warm light, paradoxical and bewitching, standing firm, all for that vibrant moment — when she cuts open the restrictive garment. Even if the cost is piercing through her own artery.
HAN TIEN 
Translated by Kaohsiung Film Festival
Originally published in KFF Festival Guide (2023)
Relative to her identity as a director, I seem to appreciate Jessica HAUSNER even more deeply as an exceptional art director. That was how I felt the first time I watched Little Joe. The film is like an exquisitely tasteful gallery: a blend of musical hues and colorful melodies; exotic music with vibrant sound clusters and orchestrations — and striking flowers in a cold laboratory.
Indeed, composed and carefully crafted camera choices (including angles and shot lengths), as well as lucid and metaphoric use of colors, are outstanding tools that she uses. As she matures, she has been able to find balance between clarity and metaphor, ensemble and individual, satire and melodrama, all while maintaining a certain ambiguity. In Lourdes, in particular, this balance reaches its peak, imbuing a sense of lightness.
For instance, she often uses ensemble reaction shots to indirectly depict the main character. Yet, the subtle sense of detachment she creates in Lourdes is not quite paranoid horror or absurd irony, but rather, achieves an “understanding" of the “incomprehensible". The film evokes the fantastic naturalism of Lucrecia MARTEL, but also harbors the mocking and questioning tones of Éric ROHMER or Michael HANEKE. Her choice of an ambiguous ending is perhaps also a softening of the “nothingness" that customarily concluded her previous films.
Ironically, while Little Joe takes “nothingness" to the extreme and showcases highly artificial designs, it somehow feels even more captivating. This reflects the contradiction in her works: Are her works that are “less like her" more watchable, or are her works that are “very much her" more interesting?
Looking back at her filmography, it is not difficult to discern recurring themes and elements. As a filmmaker, Jessica HAUSNER’s traits have gradually become clear yet awkward, making it almost evident that there is a certain “proxy" in her works: ordinarily good and ordinarily bad elites / good girls from Catholic families. Bad behavior often stems from rebellion caused by hurt feelings. But they are unable to find healthier ways of taking care of themselves, creating a vicious cycle. That hurt primarily comes from paternal authority (including religious faith, parenting, school education), its rigid traditions, and its mechanisms of exclusion. However, when the girls rebel or adopt another form of authority (for example, the embrace of revolutionary doctrines from a new teacher in her new film Club Zero), it often ends in “nothingness".
“Nothingness" lies at the unique core of HAUSNER’s films. At first glance, each film engages in debate on different issues, yet at the end, there is often no solution, suggesting a general apathy towards the world. As depicted in Little Joe, this kind of overwhelming indifference is almost hopeless, powerless, indemonstrable — and can only be accepted.
As an example, in her most “romantic" film, Amour Fou, the debate revolves around whether or not understanding equates to not loving. Conversely, the assumption that one can truly understand another’s obsessive love is so absurdly comical, so how can it be considered genuine love? On the other hand, while Club Zero brings together numerous elements and explores more contemporary issues, the same core attitude remains: Beneath the veneer of the “tolerance" of parents lies neglect and indifference. At the same time, students blindly believe in unbridled progressivism, lacking room for thought and reflection. In these circumstances, they feel a lack of understanding for the world they are in, for others, and even for their own behavior.
Through this, a vivid ray of orange-red emerges, possessing the potential to transform into different variations. It is the shyness and ambition of desiring to understand the world in her short film Flora and in Lourdes. It is the commotion of Lovely Rita, the alienated vitality of Little Joe. In HAUSNER’s films, the color red symbolizes that “variation is life". Though it may ultimately end in nothingness, in her works, it represents something that can still ignite sparks in an apathetic world.
HAUSNER reminds one of The Souvenir director Joanna HOGG, but when exploring familial difficulties brought by issues such as class and taste, their response towards the ever-present “artistic good kids who want to be bad" are strikingly different. HOGG wears it like a second skin — even her so-called “metanarrative" is as thin as cicada wings. HAUSNER, meanwhile, cannot help but feel like she is donning a straitjacket. All she can do is illuminate her orange-red blade, its cold texture radiating warm light, paradoxical and bewitching, standing firm, all for that vibrant moment — when she cuts open the restrictive garment. Even if the cost is piercing through her own artery.
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