Returning from his imprisonment in Russia during the First World War, Franz Ferdinand Trotta, a young KuK officer, discovers how much the defeat has transformed Vienna and his people. He is stunned by the new order of things. Having lost his entire fortune and his wife, who is having a sapphic relationship with a Hungarian artist, he tries to regain his place in a world that appears devastated.
Cinematography
Gray Vienna as crumbling monument to itself.
Acting
Bálint's face collapsing in real time.
Costume
Uniforms that no longer mean anything.
Director
Johannes Schaaf
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Based on Joseph Roth's 'Die Kapuzinergruft,' part of his Trotta trilogy tracing Habsburg collapse through one family's generations.
Schaaf made this during the German New Wave's peak but rejected its energy—this is anti-revolution, mourning what revolution destroyed.
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