What was the first element of the story that fell into place?
Michael Haneke: It was so long ago. I wrote the script 10 years ago, and it had been percolating in my mind for the 10 years previous to that. But the answer—if you want to know the starting point of the film, the original idea I had was the story of a church choir in protestant northern Germany before the first World War. I like the idea of children who had internalized the moral imperatives that they’d been taught by their parents, and then judged their parents according to the moral imperatives that they preached. That was the starting point for the film. AVC: Is there a reason for the particular region the film is set in? Is it a part of Germany that’s particularly close to Austria? MH: No. Germany, in terms of religion, at least, is divided in two. The northern part is mainly Protestant, and the southern part is more Catholic, and it’s the southern part that’s closer to Austria and similar in terms of religion. The people in the north that are in this film are Protestant, and I wa
