Nachruf für einen Mörder

An exceptionally experimental work in Haneke's oeuvre. He painstakingly confronts the medium television with itself. The film is built up of existing TV shots taken from different broadcasts all on one day.On 8 September 1990 Felix Zehetner (21) from Wien-Floridsdorf shot his parents dead in their sleep, inflicted a bloodbath at a neighbour's party, shot two policemen and finally killed himself. This trail of killing shocked the whole of Austria.The motive for Nachruf für einen Mörder was not the murder itself, but a discussion programme, Club 2, broadcast in Austrian television three days later. The theme of the debate was: death instead of speaking about the 'intoxication of violence' among young people. Participants in the discussion were not just the usual psychiatrists and social-workers, but also those directly involved, the people who survived the party itself. The latter especially provided emotional and revealing statements.At first Haneke just copied the broadcast, but at a certain point he started to superimpose images while the sound of the conversation continues. He used fragments from the broadcasts on that day with as rule: the longer the broadcast, the longer the fragment. Without any manipulation by Haneke, the mundane TV pictures brimming with violence illustrate the conversation about the murder.