Achtung Film: The Dark Valley

The Montreal Goethe-Institut presents: The Dark Valley

Director: Andreas Prochaska, Austria / Germany (2013), 114 min, with: Sam Riley, Paula Beer, Tobias Moretti, Hans-Michael Rehberg, Carmen Gratl. In German with English subtitles.

In this adaptation of Thomas Willmann’s best-seller, a classic Western plays out in a late-nineteenth century alpine village. When a man named Greider (Sam Riley) arrives on horseback carrying a camera, he is met with distrust by the locals, who are led by the sons of Old Brenner, a brutal patriarch who holds the entire community under his thumb.

The stranger has come to do more than take photographs, as a series of mysterious deaths exposes a terrible tradition as well as Greider’s connection to the remote valley. Prochaska’s fresh approach to the genre, along with cinematographer Thomas Kiennast’s stunning visuals and Matthias Weber’s ominous orchestral score earned THE DARK VALLEY eight German Film Awards. – American Cinematheque

“Prochaska brilliantly succeeds in maintaining the tension, with a feel for rhythm which is rare to see in German-language genre-films.” - Sebastian Handke, Der Tagesspiegel

“In the film adaptation of The Dark Valley, an American hero liberates a dark mountain village from the control of tyrants. Rarely has German-language genre cinema looked so good. And so violent.” - Thomas Andre, Spiegel Online