In Haneke’s film The Seventh Continent (Der siebente Kontinent, 1989) – one of the films in his earlier “glaciation trilogy” (which also includes Benny’s Video and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance) – a family is led to a horrifying act of self-destruction after apparently succumbing to the deadening effects of an overly routine and conventional existence. They are too weak or indifferent to forge a new way of life or set of values, and so the only “rebellion” that they dare to undertake is total life-negation. Even the parents’ process of preparing for their act of collective suicide becomes as methodical, robotic, and value-neutral as their previous lives appeared to be. And in The Piano Teacher (La pianiste, 2001), the title character (Isabelle Huppert) commits acts of psychological sadism and physical self-mutilation after having lived a life of obsessive and severe self-denial.

The violence in Haneke’s films is most terrifying, not merely when it is unexpected and almost casual, but when it reveals that human reason has been completely rejected – when the very attempt to rationalize or negotiate has provoked hatred, contempt, and ultimately destruction. One telling instance of this is in The Time of the Wolf (Le temps du loup, 2003), when a family of hostile and hungry strangers has broken into another family’s country house after some unexplained apocalyptic event. The victimized father (Daniel Duval) manages to convince his rifle-wielding counterpart to allow his two children to return to the family’s car. When he then quietly suggests that they unload the car and eat, he is instantly shot dead and his wife (Isabelle Huppert), in a state of shock, can only respond by wiping the splattered blood from her face. Even the wife of the killer breaks down in a shocking fit of disbelief that her husband has actually pulled the trigger and killed a man in front of their own young son. Has he done so merely by accident, the mistaken impulse of his trigger finger? It does not appear so. Was he so embarrassed at watching his wife and children reduced to scavengers before the eyes of the house owners, his obvious superiors in social and economic status, that he can no longer stand the humiliation? Or is it an act of sheer irrationality? Since Haneke does not give us any further clue to the killer’s motive, we can only surmise that it was the very proposal made by the now dead father, an attempt at reasonable negotiation and further discourse (even in the face of a gun barrel), that prompted this man to fire unexpectedly. Such an act of nihilistic terrorism is an assault upon the very values of rationality and humanity. And in Funny Games (1997, and re-made as an American-produced version in 2007), when the father (Ulrich Mühe) asks the young vandalizers (Arno Frisch and Frank Giering), “Why are you doing this?” The reply is chilling: “Why not?” When he later asks the same question, the response is a series of obvious lies about the other hoodlum’s mother’s incestuous wishes and their desire to obtain money for drugs. They make it conspicuous that these are arbitrary lies that are offered for entertainment purposes at best. The funny games played here are even scarier when nihilistic indifference itself become parodied, as when one of the hoodlums tells the couple that his partner in crime suffers from “world-weariness and ennui.”

And so nihilism arises frequently in Haneke’s films when any regard for reason and truth have been completely rejected – when it is the very failure to engage in rational communication that has occasioned emotional numbness, hatred, self-contempt, or even violence. Such a rejection of communication is also illustrated in the type of seemingly irresolvable conflicts between cultures and generations that is the primary theme of Code Unknown (Code inconnu, 2000), whose very title may indicate a lack of mutual trust or understanding. And in Hidden (Caché, 2005), the abandonment of meaningful dialogue is embodied in the confrontations between Georges (Daniel Auteuil) and Majid (Maurice Bénichou), particularly in their final encounter. The opportunity for a genuinely redeeming conversation has been forsaken – ironically so, given that Georges is by profession a television talk-show host. Their failed acts of mutual communication have become a series of accusations, threats, and denials, all founded on lies and misperceptions. The only act of “closure” by which Majid sees fit to end their renewed “relationship” is a wordless act of self-destruction – a leap into the abyss. In the case of Caché, the decision to omit or distort the truth is motivated by a desire to maintain the illusory status quo of a comfortable life, even when reality signals that things are not running as smoothly as they seem. Georges’ bedside conversation with his mother (Annie Girardot) is a perfect illustration of such an attempt to gloss over the truth.

Haneke’s two most recent films are intriguingly different from one another in that The White Ribbon (Das weisse Band: Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte, 2009) focuses on a collective sense of nihilistic anxiety and despair while Amour (2012) centers upon a far more personal and private sense of the same. In the end, however, both films indicate, perhaps far clearly than any of his others, that Haneke’s dark vision is propelled by a very humane interest in the possibility of overcoming the negative forces in our lives. The former film, photographed exquisitely in Bergmanesque black and white, depicts a rural north German village around 1913, one that has become plagued by a series of sinister, enigmatic events that point ever more increasingly to the diabolical machinations of the village children. The movie’s storyline does not dwell on any one character for too long but drifts from one life and situation to another, pulling the audience into a communal vortex of quiet violence and ritualized psychological abuse. We can surmise, given the time and setting of the film, that Haneke presents us here with the severely repressed lives of those youngsters who would grow up and become members of the future Nazi generation. The evil deeds in the village appear to be the vengeful actions of those whose youthful lives have been poisoned by their elders’ physical as well as spiritual perversions.

Amour, on the other hand, takes us into the claustrophobic private lives of its two main characters, Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), and invites only a few other figures into their agonizing circumstances. When Anne slips into sporadic dementia and then a paralyzing stroke, Georges is forced to cope with the overwhelming challenges of caring for her. Their daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert), except for a few all-too-brief visits, proves to be of no assistance whatsoever, and one of the temporary day nurses proves to be unreliable and even sadistic. Haneke shows us in graphic terms – and in a slow, deliberate, haunting tempo of montage – the solitary challenges and horrors of their daily existence. Most of the movie is set in the couple’s apartment and the world beyond is glimpsed only through windows and doorways.

And yet there is hope and humanity underlying the darkness. In the case of The White Ribbon, we can see the hideous trajectory that summons the viewer from the immediate given-ness of the repression and violence in the village to the imagined consequences that lie ahead in the future: a nation’s genocidal evil. But the true ending of the film does not lie merely in the shot of the small chapel congregation at the finale, but rather in the lessons that the audience has already learned from the hideous historical events that await many of these characters. If anything, Haneke gives us a diagnosis (in miniature) of at least a few important aspects of a cultural sickness that breeds monsters. As with most of Haneke’s films, there is an earnest attempt here at truth-telling and thereby at showing us a way beyond the horror. In this sense, the very act of making such a film about nihilism’s symptoms and causes is inherently anti-nihilistic, and especially so when taken in the broader historical context that has already demonstrated the link between passive nihilism and life-extinguishing evil.

Amour presents us with a decision that seems, on the surface, to be as nihilistic as any that has appeared in Haneke’s earlier works: the choice of Georges to terminate the life of his beloved Anne, and along with her life, her unbearable suffering and pathetic condition. In the context of the overall film, however, this choice may be viewed as a very humane one, especially given all that we have experienced up until this point. The film steers us toward compassion for Georges’ acceptance of euthanasia as the best possible solution. While Haneke intentionally uses moral ambiguity in many of his film narratives, it is in some cases a merely surface-level ambiguity. Just as it is quite clear by the end of The White Ribbon that the children are to blame for the evil -- along with their cruel treatment by certain adults in the village -- it is also clear by the end of Amour that Georges’ deep love for his wife has made it unbearable for him to continue seeing her fade painfully into a mere semblance of her former self. It is far from being a selfish or even nihilistic decision, especially given all that we have witnessed of his selfless dedication up to this point. If Nietzsche’s idea of passive nihilism is founded upon the outright rejection of the intrinsic value of life itself, then the conclusion of Amour is, ironically, a heartfelt rejection of that attitude. An affirmation of life goes beyond the mere prolongation of insufferable biological existence. If there is room for moral condemnation at the end, then it would be the condemnation of Georges’ rather callous, self-absorbed daughter who, in the final image of the movie, enters their empty apartment to consider the awful twilight of lives she barely knew.