A few weeks ago I decided to capitalise on the economic misery by buying some cheap flights to Iceland. It has always been a longstanding tourist destination for those wishing to perve at nature while enjoying such culinary delights as putrefied shark. For those who don’t dig that sort of thing there is always culture, in particular the music. Iceland has a damn fine music scene, and I am not just talking about Sigur Rós and crazy old Björk.

Wandering through Reykjavik, it became apparent just how important music is in Iceland; nearly every coffee shop and bar, no matter how small, doubles up as a venue, and there is a distinct lack of international music on sale. There is also an absence of soulless mega stores and in their place are several laid back independent record shops such as Havari and 12 Tónar. The latter is a little green house with an atmosphere more like a best friend’s bedroom than a record store. It not only stocks all the Icelandic favourites but also homemade demos from new bands, lets you try before you buy, holds gigs, serves free coffee and has its own label — phew! But, for me, what really sets Tónar apart from Glasgow’s independent stalwarts is the feeling it creates, giving the idea that not only is music integral to everyday life in Iceland, but also that everyone can get involved.

Just around the corner I discovered Smekkleysa, (that’s “Bad Taste” to you and me). This shop/label was established in 1986 by Icelandic legends The Sugarcubes. The label is currently home to Kimono, an experimental rock group brought to my attention by the paper trail of posters strewn across the city. Down the street I came to Prikið, the stronghold for Iceland’s mini hip hop scene, pioneered by the Beastie-esque Quarashi. The café looks like an unlikely place to hold any musical event, especially as I noticed that during the day the clientele are mostly ageing regulars enjoying coffee in its subdued surroundings. However, at night the place fills with djs, chaps in big hats and an awesome atmosphere. The café is an example of the music scene’s diversity, throwing the concept of genre straight out the window with bands like Sometime, who fuse elements of hip hop with pop and rock.

As I strolled towards the other side of the city two things become apparent: Reykjavik is tiny, and there is a lack of large music venues. The city seems to favour intimate venues such as my favourite, Mokka; a cramped but cosy veteran coffee house. This makes for unique, exciting gigs, and the small size of the city also leads to a close knit artistic community with a feel similar to Glasgow’s West End. Combine this with Iceland’s naturally haunting Lunar Landscape and it’s not surprising that there is such a diverse range of styles and over 300 bands within the little frozen city. I have to say I enjoyed the music more than anything else in Iceland; it’s about the only thing in the county that doesn’t reek of sulphur.

Sarah Smith

President Obama has used his first year in office to introduce historic healthcare legislation, provide a financial stimulus package of almost $800bn in order to rescue a collapsing economy, and broker a deal on climate change which unites both the US and China for the first time ever. And he has managed this despite the fact that, in January 2009, America’s future was looking bleaker than it had for many years.

George W. Bush’s legacy to his successor was America’s involvement in two difficult and expensive wars, a crumbling automotive industry and a financial system on the brink of total collapse.

Obama has had only one year to attempt to resolve problems which have been years in the making. If McCain had won the election, he would have met with the same challenges and probably faced much of the same criticism which has been levelled at Obama.

The recent opinion polls which show Obama’s approval rating to be hovering around 50%, having dropped from about 68%, suggests that the American public is disappointed with
their president. But if there was the belief that Obama would be able to revolutionise the country and save it from financial crisis within just one year, there was bound to be disappointment when that didn’t happen. Barack Obama cannot be blamed for failing to live up to unrealistic expectations.

Another reason for the low approval rating is that Obama has had to implement unpopular policies in order to help stabilise the economy. The banking bail-out faced heavy criticism and accusations that the President was trying to introduce socialism by stealth. This opposition came despite the fact that economy experts all over the world were advocating such policies as the only way to avoid entering another worldwide depression.

A 50% approval rating after one year is not unusual considering the economic climate — Ronald Reagan faced a similar popularity slide during his first year, but this improved as the country recovered financially. There is no reason to think that the same will not be true for Obama.

Obama was elected precisely because he offered a radical change from the previous administration but once the initial tide of enthusiasm died down, so did support for some of Obama’s more controversial campaign promises. The most prominent example of this is the debate over proposed healthcare reforms. It was months before agreements were reached and despite the fact that Congress has voted in favour, the differences between the House of Representatives’ reform bill and that passed by the Senate have still to be reconciled. If signed into law, Obama will be responsible for the most significant healthcare reform in the United States in decades. Surely this cannot be considered anything other than a success, considering the intense opposition to any kind of reform at all.

Obama has not managed to fulfil all of his campaign promises yet, but there are still three years left of his term — plenty of time to prove to his doubters that he can build upon the successes of this year and deliver what the American public voted him in for: meaningful, lasting change.

Failure to deliver

James Maxwell

Apart from those few awkward contrarians and obstinate racists, we all invested something, emotionally, in the presidency of Barack Obama. His election in November 2008 was the defining political event of the age, bringing a spark of light to the closing moments of a dark decade.

Obama pledged real change. He was going to deliver, like Roosevelt and Johnson had done, legislation that would permanently alter America’s social and ideological and economic landscape.

Principally, he promised a programme of health care that would extend coverage to all citizens regardless of their ability to pay, the immediate closure of Guantanamo, a market that served the people, not a people that served the market. He was given an unqualified mandate by the American people, disclosed in a huge Congressional majority and buffeted by a margin of eight million votes.

But twelve months on from his January inauguration, there is no question that Obama has failed to live up the expectations of his supporters, and his own, self-imposed, standards of governance.

In Massachusetts, the absurd former centre-fold model and unreconstructed conservative Scott Brown has just won Teddy Kennedy’s old Senate seat. Or rather, the Democrats have proved themselves incapable of holding onto a constituency that has for forty years consistently re-elected one of America’s most high profile liberal politicians, in one of the most progressive states in the Union.

Why? Because Obama buckled on healthcare reform. His original proposal — which he outlined during his first two or three months in office — would have required the state to provide health insurance for 30 million un-insured Americans — Americans too poor to provide for themselves. This was, predictably, denounced by his Republican opponents as the first step in a socialist usurpation of American liberty.

Over the following summer months, the Republican machine — still bitter and reeling from its loss — rumbled into action, engineering an aggressive anti-healthcare, anti-Obama campaign.

The President was, comically, branded both a Marxist and a Nazi, and in town hall meetings across the country Democratic Senators and Representatives were confronted by hordes of spoilt and over-fed GOP operatives, howling that Obama’s plans were un-constitutional.

How did Obama respond? Did he say, “Listen, I just won the presidential election by a landslide and with all the odds stacked against me. The American people want and need better and more comprehensive health coverage, and elected me to deliver it to them — and that’s what I’m going to do. So sit down and shut up”?

No. Obama conceded ground, allowing the Republicans in Congress to strip his bill, piranha-style, of all its vital features. And then he conceded some more ground. And then he conceded some more.

It is Obama’s obsessively conciliatory nature that’s to blame for the healthcare capitulation; his strange desire to be seen as a ‘healer of the nation’, a cross-party, bi-partisan, all-things-to-all-people kind of president.

He is now no longer free to act uncompromisingly on his other campaign promises. Guantanamo continues to function, with more than twenty inmates still languishing in its cages, waiting to be charged. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have posted multi-billion dollar profits in the last couple of weeks, and are subject to only a miniscule windfall charge.

The vast reservoirs of belief and enthusiasm that carried Obama to the presidency haven’t completely dissipated, despite his depressing poll ratings..They are, however, dwindling. He has to begin to stand his ground if he is to stop them disappearing all together.

Coming back from South America was never going to be easy. After a year spent studying in the sprawl of Buenos Aires and a few months winding through the Andes on rusty buses in the rainy season, adjusting to home has taken a while. Things are just different. While preparing a presentation on music piracy for my Spanish class last week I stumbled across Lily Allen’s outburst against illegal downloads back in September and instantly thought of the differences betewen here and there. A look at the counterfeit industry in Latin America soon puts things into perspective.

I recall the countless times I would be offered counterfeit music, films and software whilst riding the subway, passing a local market or just quietly sipping a coffee. The piles of DVD sized packets fronted by blonde temptresses with their breasts modestly covered by clip art stars and the striking titles such as “Supercumbias!” or “Los Mejores Exitos de 2011.” Some even went to the trouble of copying the record labels small print warning that it is prohibited to copy or redistribute this disc, the irony perhaps lost on its creators.

In Peru it is estimated that 99% of all CD sales are illegal. Mexico tells a similar tale with one representative of the industry admitting that piracy is now “entrenched”. The explanation become quite clear when you discover that, for example in Peru, the average wage is $150. An original album costs about $14 whereas you can pick up a pirate disc with over 200 MP3s for $2. Widespread corruption, the apathy of authorities and the organisation of the counterfeiters add to the startling scale of piracy across the continent. In the Peruvian capital Lima, the main market, lined with pirate “shops” is just round the corner from the city’s central police station. It is often easier to find an illegal copy than the original.

Though countries such as Argentina and Chile may appear to have more control over illegal copying, if you scratch beneath the surface you soon discover counterfeit goods are everywhere. In Buenos Aires, just across the road from one of the city’s biggest shopping malls lies a maze of kiosks selling all the latest blockbusters, cracked software and chart hits.

What is perhaps more worrying is the suggested link between large-scale piracy and organised crime. Some investigators have hinted at the involvement of Colombian cartels, Chinese triads and even the Italian mafia. In a highly organised operation, hundreds of thousands of discs are transported across the continent, eventually appearing on streets from Venezuela to Paraguay.

Considering the economic limitations of consumers, the power of the gangs running operations and the cultural acceptance of buying pirate goods, authorities and labels face an uphill struggle, If the RIAA and the IFPI think they have it bad fighting the founders of Oink and Pirate Bay they should perhaps consider themselves lucky.

As we slowly but surely approach the 23rd James Bond movie, I feel like I have actually been part of this monumental franchise. Unlike with the Die Hard, Alien or Rocky series, I was able to see a significant number of the Bond films on the big screen despite my tender age. I was there when Martin Campbell resurrected Bond with Goldeneye, sat through the abysmal Die Another Day and was blown away when Campbell, once again, reinvented 007 in Casino Royale.

It was always going to be hard to follow Craig’s Bond debut, yet I found Quantum of Solace to be hugely frustrating. Nevertheless, I have high hopes for number 23. Firstly, because every Bond film is an entirely different project and I am generally very happy with the new direction taken by the franchise and secondly, because Sam Mendes is in talks to direct the whole thing.

Let’s face it, the experiment of Marc Forster directing Quantum of Solace didn’t really work out. It reminded me a bit of Ang Lee’s Hulk (in all fairness, Forster still did a much better job). However, Mendes — having successfully directed plays as well as films — is more versatile and experienced than Forster. Although to be fair to him, it wasn’t all his fault that Quantum of Solace disappointed.

The writers’ strike was threatening to stall the production so the script was rushed and much of the confusing action was the results of ultra fast-paced editing (a stage over which the director himself has little control). I am convinced everyone has learnt from their mistakes and the whole project should be given a new chance.

The first positive step has been taken by allowing a bit more time for the production and adding Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon, The Damned United) to the already impressive mix of talented screenwriters. I believe these are crucial improvements as the sloppy Quantum of Solace screenplay gave the whole project an almost unfinished touch.

In terms of directing, Sam Mendes has proven many times that he is great with stories and characters. Kevin Spacey’s performance in American Beauty or Michael Shannon’s hilariously unnerving portrayal of an extremely clever but psychologically troubled man in the underrated Revolutionary Road are among the very best of the past decade. If Mendes can get performances only half as powerful from Craig, Dench — both of whom he has previously worked with — and whoever will play the villain, we are in for a treat.

As for Mendes, he once said about his aspirations as a director: “I don’t want to be known for one thing”. Well, here’s an opportunity to make something very different. Please take it!

Whatever terrible environmental or political apocalpyse this new decade — the teens? the tensies? I prefer, in the spirit of cultural critic Jody Rosen’s designation of the last decade as “the Beyonces”, to think of them as the Lady Gagas — will herald in, we will still always be able to find solid comfort in one fact. No matter what the hell else 2010 brings, it will still be the year Big Brother disappeared from our screens. Or, y’know, at the very least, the year it stopped being transmitted from Channel 4 but would likely still find an audience elsewhere pending negotiations with Dave. I don’t care. That’s still good enough for me.

I don’t say that because I’m some kind of awful snob. I am an awful snob, but not when it comes to reality TV, per se. This isn’t only for the reason that, without a doubt, the greatest British television invention of the last five years has been Come Dine With Me, either. Reality TV — or, as it is rather euphemistically called within the industry, “alternative programming” (alternative from what? good programming?) — exists, and has done for quite some time, and frankly, the only thing more boring than watching Stephen Baldwin endlessly proselytising to Sisqo about how he and Jesus have pet-names for one another is watching yet another episode of Newsnight Review endlessly drawing attention to what this signifies.

Still, and at the risk of hopelessly contradicting myself, Big Brother is rubbish, and its demise can only be a good thing, not least because it might put an end to those Newsnight Reviews. What’s more interesting than all the reasons why BB is a bane on our lives, though, is what its absence might do. Reading its disappearance as a sign that the genre as a whole is on the wane seems foolishly optimistic: all it indicates is that one franchise ran out of ideas and became a hopeless and grotesque parody of itself. And while alternative programming remains so cheap to produce, and original drama so expensive, the former will be irresistable to broadcasters, even more so now that Sky and the BBC are insisting that an ever greater number of shows are filmed in high-priced HD, while reality programs are created out of what is essentially a glorified combination of CCTV and home video.

Nonetheless, there does appear to be a shift — in the UK at least — towards more content-oriented reality TV; less obsessed with navel gazing non-entities or the crude exploitation of fame-starved idiots.

Whatever the end of Big Brother amounts to, I feel sure in my heart that it will mean that there will be more hours in the day during which I will be afforded the opportunity to watch strangers prepare meals for one another in a competitive, passive-aggressive environment. And of that, I am truly thankful.

Perhaps it has been a decade now since you last handled an audio cassette, unless of course you’re a fan of the numerous genres still thriving on the format. The grainy texture unique to analogue recordings is the perfect vessel for several DIY styles, from noise and power-electronics, to ambience and kosmische. Merch stalls at such gigs are brimming with boxes of different albums, live sets, rarities and improvisations by various artists, all on tape, sometimes completely anonymous and maybe even unique; far removed from the regimented iTunes libraries of the digital age.

Locally, there is a fair bit of this going on. Local Noise/Assorted nastiness label At War with False Noise is still pedalling various delights on cassette including prolific, shrouded-in-mystery noise outfit Culver (providing “instructions on entering the void”) and Glasgow’s own Cheer (filling up tapes with heartbreaking waves of messy ambience). Similarly, Sick Head Tapes have released various singles by local one-man “kosmische metal space ritual project” Nackt Insecten and Kylie Minoise.

If the rumours are true though, all this hands-on fun will be hard to come by in as little as a year. Commercial production of the format has ceased and we’ve been living off the overstock ever since. Rumour or not, stocks will one day run out. Our favourite tunes have long since vacated these awkward relics and fled onto hard drives and servers in lonely bedrooms and basements all over the world. Disseminated by the likes of Myspace, Spotify and of course, for some lucky ducks, the joy of the Murano Street mass Shared iTunes Library, an inadvertent masterstroke by Sanctuary Housing.

Physically then, our music has disappeared. Are we losing anything else? If you sit down and listen to an album on tape, what you’re listening to is the album as an entity. Even if you do skip certain tracks, the process of traversing and fine-tuning that reel acknowledges this. Today, with the ability to instantly jump between any track from any outfit comes an impatient urge to simultaneously satisfy every musical craving. This attitude has consequences; any DJs starting out at house parties will be familiar with that moment when halfway through your delicately mixed and perfectly arranged minimal techno set, some fool comes stumbling over your decks insisting you stick some Kasabian on. A more serious point might argue that decent artists will exploit this attitude and start releasing albums of equally gratifying singles, rather then a sixty-minute experience, a feeling I certainly get from Radiohead’s In Rainbows for example.

Not that I’d want to be a victim of nostalgia; I needn’t mention the benefits of the modern age, and looking back I’m not sure I could take the trauma of having my Peter and the Wolf audio cassette munched up by my parents’s car tape-deck. Still, I think I’ll be stocking up on c60s these next few months.

Here’s an interesting challenge: name an actor or actress with a spotless resume. Not so easy, eh? In my eyes, the only one who comes even close is John Cazale. All the films he has starred in received Best Picture Oscar nominations, including The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter. Then again, had he not died prematurely at the age of 43 who knows where his career would have taken him (I guess it’s the same case with James Dean).

Most of the usual suspects, however, have committed at least one or two severe cinematic crimes, either at the very early stages of their career (George Clooney in Return of the Killer Tomatoes) or with advanced age (I still have hope for you, but right now, I’m looking at you Robert De Niro). Nevertheless, the trend is that great performances outweigh bad ones. Do we think of Al Pacino as a bad actor because he stared in Bennifer’s nightmare of a film, Gigli? No, we think of him as Tony Montana, Michael Corleone or Serpico.

You might wonder where I’m going with this. Well, it occurred to me recently that this rule doesn’t really seem to apply to Nicolas Cage. There’s no doubt that he has been in some terrible, terrible films over the years, but what people tend to forget is that he is also an Oscar-winning actor with a special talent when it comes to portraying eccentric individuals in a strangely funny and touching way.

If a character is complex, flawed or simply mad, Nic Cage will deliver a great performance. If he takes on a stereotypical role, be it the slick hitman, a treasure hunter or a loving single father, you can most definitely expect a cringeworthy portrayal as well as a Razzie nomination (my favourite: the nomination for worst screen couple which Cage and his bear suit received for the Wicker Man remake in 2006). Maybe there is something autobiographical about his good performances. No offence, but don’t you find it easier to imagine Nic Cage having OCD (like his character in Matchstick Men) than him being an astrophysicist (Knowing)?

Perhaps it’s not a coincidence then that he delivered one of his best performances in Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation. Cage’s double role portrayal as screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and his less talented twin brother Donald Kaufman actually had me convinced that they were uncannily similar to himself. One half of Nic Cage simply wants to be respected for his work, the other half frustratingly compromises it by making stupid action movies. I guess this isn’t an inconceivable thought, as Cage himself believes that “there’s a fine line between the method actor and the schizophrenic”. I can just imagine the two Cages battling over whether to take on the lead in Werner Herzog’s upcoming Bad Lieutenant or to give in to the temptation that is Ghost Rider 2. As long as both halves get their say, I will remain a happy man.

Tom Bonnick

When war was declared on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in October 2001, I supported the invasion. America made a series of perfectly reasonable demands — like, stop sheltering the terrorists who killed 3,000 people a fortnight ago — which were then ignored.

Even though the war was a brutal one, it seemed like it had some sense of purpose — at least, until Bush lost sight of his original ambitions, decided that the colour scheme of the big “Mission Accomplished” banner he’d ordered wouldn’t “go” with Helmand Province, and swiftly reached the conclusion that Iraq would make a great venue for Round II of Operation Enduring Freedom.

And since being so horrifically sidetracked into engaging in war with Iraq, everyone seemed to sort of forget about Afghanistan for a while; a condition not helped by the perpetual conflation of the causes behind each conflict.

The awful, tragic reality is that if Bush and Rumsfeld had been a little less attention deficit-y and not moved on as soon as they got bored, there almost certainly would be more lasting signs of progress in the country.

The Taliban wouldn’t have had the same opportunities to re-group, move into Pakistan in such strong numbers (and forget Iran, that’s what we should really be worrying about: a nuclear-armed country sporadically dotted with completely lawless, terrorist-controlled border regions) and then re-assert power over large swathes of the Afghan population.

But that has happened, and so it’s time to accept that success will probably never look like how we imagined — not least because democracy of the kind we enjoy will never work in a country with no real notion of centralised government or a top-down power structure — and re-adjust expectations accordingly.

Inflated ideas of success are probably — after Iraq — the most significant contributing factor to the stalemate that has emerged. It’s worth bearing in mind that historically, Afghanistan has pretty much been the most difficult country in the world to conquer: Alexander the Great didn’t succeed, the Soviets didn’t succeed, and nor have NATO. Or, at least, not in the way they’d imagined.

No clear definition of “victory” and constantly fluctuating arguments for why British troops are still in Afghanistan has done little other than lead to prolonged and unnecessary casualties, and rather than continuing engagement in pointless skirmishes with localised Taliban forces, the allied troops ought to be limiting their direct involvement in maintaining security and handing over powers to national military and police powers.

What’s happening now is a perfect example of the law of diminishing returns: America and Britain continue pouring greater and greater numbers into the country, with ever less satisfactory results — and further huge troop increases would achieve nothing other than demonstrating even further quite how poorly-defined our goals are.

It only took nineteen men to change the course of global foreign policy: nineteen men and four planes. I don’t think that it’s possible for Britain or America to wage war enough to stop nineteen guys from trying to repeat the act, and the only way to achieve safety at home and stability in Afghanistan is not through this endless battle of attrition, but though less dramatic and less bloodthirsty means.

Troop increase

James Maxwell

What is at stake in Afghanistan? One might be forgiven for thinking that it is only the lives of British and American soldiers. In those NATO countries that maintain a substantial military presence in South-central Asia, public debate has been reduced to a single, sordid, consideration: what best serves our national interest? This is the standard refrain of the foreign policy realist; of the Kissingerian isolationist. It would be all too easy for Barack Obama to capitulate to the growing number of voices in his own country — and in ours — that express this sentiment. But the initial question deserves a proper answer.

Western forces have established a fragile barricade between the admittedly tentative, limited freedoms of Afghan citizens, and the Islamist predators that ruled the country prior to the NATO intervention in 2001. It would be a difficult thing to draw out the full horror of the Taliban government here, but we can gather some impression from a cursory review of how they conduct themselves as insurgents.

Primary and secondary schools are among their favourite targets. They particularly relish decapitating those teachers who dare to try to educate girls, and they have been known to mutilate with powder acid those girls who dare to try to get an education.

Let’s assume, though, that we’re all familiar with opposition policy on females (and homosexuals, Christians, Jews, atheists, liberals, socialists… add a category of your choice) and explore instead another consequence of troop withdrawal. Afghanistan sits on a geo-political fault-line with nuclear-armed Pakistan. The Pakistani state is currently struggling with its own guerrilla uprising against a movement not at all dissimilar from that of its neighbour.

Were Al-Qaeda and the Pakistan and Afghan Taliban allowed free range of the Hindu Kush, Pakistan’s shaky democracy would be on the brink; it would take perhaps only months for it to collapse. The world would then be faced with the prospect of an army of violent theocrats equipped with weapons powerful enough to reduce Europe to rubble several times over.

There is, of course, also the very real question of international justice. The hunt for the men who organised the 9/11 attacks did not end with the apprehension of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. It was Osama bin Laden who sanctioned the atrocity — he has himself repeatedly laid claim to this particular dishonour — and he remains free, skulking somewhere on Afghanistan’s eastern rim. It would be a disgraceful abrogation of the American state’s moral duty to his victims if it failed to find, capture, or kill bin Laden. Ideally, he would stand trial in Manhattan, less than a mile away from the scene of the crime. Who would say it wasn’t worth the effort then?

It may be the case that increasing the intensity of the campaign against Islamist militants in Afghanistan will result in the deaths of more British and American servicemen and women. There is no question that this is tragic. But President Obama should grit his teeth and tell his people that these are necessary losses. He knows that there is a great deal more at stake.

At this year’s Cannes film festival, the controversy surrounding Lars von Trier’s Antichrist came at the expense of Austrian director Michael Haneke, who won the Palme d’Or over von Trier for his latest film, The White Ribbon. Funnily enough, it is the controversy of Haneke’s films that have made him a regular nominee at the prestigious film festival. With the release of The White Ribbon approaching on November 13 I want to pay tribute to one of Europe’s greatest contemporary directors.

To anyone familiar with Haneke’s work, it is needless to say that there have been few violent acts that he has been afraid to show in the twenty years since his feature film debut. However, we are not talking the kind of gratuitous uber-violence à la Hostel here, but carefully placed moments of brutality that are often over before you can avert your eyes. The shorter the scene, the longer it lingers in your mind. Even after leaving the cinema.

In his most famous works, which include The Piano Teacher, Hidden and Funny Games, he predominantly investigates the origins of violence and terror whilst not shying away from depicting them in gruesome detail himself. He believes that through dumbed down violence in contemporary media we hardly notice it anymore; hence his extreme countermeasure.

Some critics have labelled Haneke a hypocrite for condemning the use of violence in the media whilst adding his fair share of it. However, he believes that one has to be honest when making films and if the reality of the issues that are tackled is a violent one, then so be it; there should be no compromises in order to please a greater audience. Whether people choose to see this as glamorizing violence or not, it has to be said that if his aim is to draw attention to the obscenity of reality, he succeeds without fail. Be it Isabelle Huppert’s genital mutilation in The Piano Teacher, the slashing of a throat in Hidden, or the slow-motion execution of a pig in Benny’s Video, the violence in Haneke’s films is daring and relentless, but what matters most to him is that we are always aware of it.

What lifts Haneke’s films into the territory of European cinema’s finest, however, is not just his distinct and overt way of examining the origins of violence but also his ability to find the perfect balance between an engaging story, artistry and wariness of elitism (often associated with arthouse films). There is a fine line between cinema where brutality and controversy serve a purpose (Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, for example) and films that provoke in order to make up for a lack of quality (Larry Clark’s Ken Park spring to mind). Haneke’s films belong to the former category, demonstrating that intelligent, provoking cinema is not a phenomenon of the past.