71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, titled 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls in German, is a 1994 drama movie made by Michael Haneke. The final installment of Haneke's Glaciation Trilogy, 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance is the story about several Viennese citizens and how they crossed paths one fateful day at the bank.
This film provides examples of:
- Arms Dealer: A group of young men smuggle handguns out of a military armory and illegally sell them on the black market. This is how Max gets his hands on one.
- Connected All Along:
- Mrs. Tomek, the bank employee, interacts with a customer that turns out to be her father.
- Hans is a securities officer who delivers money to the bank and usually asks for Mrs. Tomek's countersignature.
- Mrs. Tomek's father and the Brunners watch Marian Radu's interview on the news channel.
- Mrs. Brunner, Mrs. Tomek, Mrs. Tomek's father, Hans, and Max are at the bank when the shooting occurs.
- Contrived Coincidence: Lampshaded by the title. The main characters are complete strangers that just so happened to meet up at a bank.
- Crapsack World: The movie frequently breaks up the narratives of its characters with real news reports of war and genocide.
- Dysfunction Junction:
- Marian Radu is an orphan who ran away from home after dealing with some abusive guardians. His tragic backstory is what persuades the Brunners to take him in.
- Hans and his wife have relationship problems, and Hans slaps his wife at one point.
- Mrs. Tomek's father feels that he is a burden to his daughter and that he is growing distant from the rest of his extended family.
- It is implied that the Brunners are infertile, which is why they adopt Anni as their daughter and temporarily take Radu under their wing.
- Max is a nineteen-year-old who considers jumping from his dorm's window to commit suicide. In addition, he is not good at dealing with stress as noted in his talks with his ping pong coach and the gas station manager. He is also responsible for killing multiple people at the bank.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The movie is made up of 71 fragmented scenes.
- Meaningful Background Event:
- Max and his friend play a game of Mikado with Max's friend betting his expensive watch. Later, Max checks his watch for the time, implying that he won the game.
- Mrs. Brunner, Mrs. Tomek, Mrs. Tomek's father, Hans, and Max go to the bank for various reasons. Because the aforementioned characters mostly have no connection to one another, they usually appear in the background while story focuses on the current viewpoint character.
- Murder-Suicide: Max kills three people before shooting himself.
- Once More, with Clarity: A sequence of shocking news reports plays again at the end of the movie, revealing that Max's bank rampage was just another news segment and was depressingly not the most tragic event of the day since the newscaster immediately starts talking about the Bosnian War.
- Rotating Narrator: After each scene, the narrative usually goes into another character's perspective.
- Silent Conversation: The Brunners' first meeting with Radu has no audio.
- Slice of Life: Up until the bank rampage, the movie focuses on the everyday lives of its main characters.
- Smash to Black: Every 'fragment' ends with an immediate black screen.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Marian Radu, the Romanian boy, smokes cigars and burglarizes shops and cars. Justified since Radu had a difficult childhood.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: An impatient driver yells at Max for blocking the gas station exit. This is the final straw that convinces Max to shoot up the bank.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: While the victims' families and/or associates get some focus, the story doesn't follow up on their fates after the bank shooting.
