HANUSSEN Movie Review

After his dazzling breakthrough performance in István Szabó's Faustian parable Mephisto, Klaus Maria Brandauer looked like the next big thing. He was to work in two other films of Szabó's over the subsequent six years—Colonel Redl and Hanussen—which completed Szabó's historical trilogy on the themes of collaboration and denial. Based on a factual case, Hanussen tells the story of Klaus Schneider, an Austrian soldier who suffered a head wound in World War I, following which he cashed in on his purported newfound ability to foresee future events. Schneider decides to resurrect a mind-reading act he staged before the war (using the stage name Hanussen), but this time, he claims, the act is for real. As in Mephisto, Brandauer's character is—despite his exploitation of those around him—strangely compelling. His manipulation of those around him can be seen as a foreshadowing of the Nazi regime waiting in the wings, and of course there's the uncomfortable question of how we would behave in similar circumstances. Brandauer played a number of character roles since working in the Szabó films—even stopping to play a fiend in the James Bond picture Never Say Never Again—but he's had no roles as commanding as Hanussen since completing it a decade ago.

MEXT STOP … Mephisto, Colonel Redl, Nightmare Alley

1988 (R) 110m/C GE HU Klaus Maria Brandauer, Erland Josephson, Walter Schmidinger; D:Istvan Szabo; W:Peter Dobai, Istvan Szabo; C:Lajos Koltai; M:Gyorgy Vukan. Nominations: Academy Awards ‘88: Best Foreign-Language Film. VHS, LV COL