52 Films by Women Vol 8. 22. Club Zero (Director: Jessica Hausner)
Pictured : Ms Novak ( Mia Wasikowska ) sashays through the Talent Academy in a scene from the comedy-drama, ' Club Zero ', directed by Jessica Hausner from a screenplay by Hausner and Géraldine Bajard . Still courtesy of Coproduction Office / BAC Films There is a case to be made that Austrian-born Jessica Hausner is one of the best writer-directors working in cinema today. Certainly she is the equal of her much-fêted compatriot Michael Haneke. Hausner’s films are about transgressors and ideas who are portrayed through a neutral lens. Her films aren’t about sex. Rather they are preoccupied with liberal guilt. We should do more for each other and ourselves or else we are doomed. Her message might be shortened to, ‘we are doomed’. Club Zero , which premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and has been released worldwide incrementally with little fanfare and certainly no awards heat, concerns itself with the politics of over-consumption. Hausner doesn’t fat shame. Rather she...