Given that a sense of catastrophe has pervaded so many of Michael Haneke's films, it's perhaps apt that the Austrian auteur should turn to the aftermath of an unspecified tragedy in Time Of The Wolf.

"TRADITIONAL CIVILISATION HAS COLLAPSED"

The film's title is drawn from an ancient Germanic poem, describing the time before the end of the world. Yet in making his fable about a nameless Western society where traditional 'civilisation' has collapsed, Haneke steers clear of traditional disaster movies, and their pyrotechnic spectacles.

He chooses to focus on a traumatised mother Anne (Isabelle Huppert) and her two young children (Lucas Biscombe and Anaïs Demoustier), and their efforts to survive in a countryside devoid of electricity and running water.

Trudging through deserted villages, they eventually find themselves at a railway depot, where a group of survivors are organised under the leadership of Koslowski (Olivier Gourmet), whom some believe is one of the 36 'just men of prophecy'.

Filmed in widescreen with Haneke's typically precise compositions, Time Of The Wolf uses darkness to heighten the sense of ominousness.

One of the most compelling scenes involves Anne's young boy, Benny, disappearing from a barn at night, and her and her daughter Eva's frantic search in the blackness, which triggers a blazing fire.

"FAILS TO BUILD ON ITS INITIAL PROMISE"

However, the film fails to build on its initial promise, and offers little in the way of dramatic variation. The director has assembled a fascinating cast (as well as Huppert and Gourmet, there's Béatrice Dalle and Patrice Chéreau). But they're not used in any especially involving ways.

And the matter-of-fact vision of life in such adversity feels predictable: humans resort to xenophobic, tribal behaviour and extremist religious beliefs, the laws of survival ensure that dominant male figures take control, and women become marginalised and forced to trade in sexual favours.

By Haneke's high standards, then, it's a minor disappointment, ultimately feeling more evasive than ambiguous.