The first time we see the family, four members strong, they're in their SUV, cutting through a woodland road en route to a country home. They seem equipped with all the acumen of a weekend vacation. They arrive at their cabin, unlock the doors, and find another family already there. The strange woman has a baby at her breast, the man a desparate look in his eyes and a gun leveled at the vacationers. He asks them about supplies, especially water, and then in a random bit of frenzy the gun goes off. The first family leaves on foot, their numbers lessened by one. Before too long, this mother and her two young children are traversing countrysides devoid of people and towns in which windows have been boarded up and bonfires made of livestock.

The mother, Anna, (Isabelle Huppert) is turned away from the few homes she finds populated. "You really don't know what's going on?" asks one man. She doesn't, but he does not tell her. Some plague seems to have befallen the land -- presumably France, since that is the language spoken -- or perhaps the world. Perhaps the apocalypse has arrived? Occasional newscasts are heard, speaking of a shortage of supplies and warning to stay away from polluted water. Animals fall dead after drinking from streams, and their carcasses line the sides of the road.

The two children, Benny (Lucas Biscombe) and Eva (Anais Demoustier), react differently to their circumstance. Benny immediately shuts himself up; I don't believe he utters a single word throughout the entire film. Eva, who is on the edge of adolescence, turns her natural rebelliousness into a tough resilience. Anna does her best to fend for her children, but she eventually succumbs to fear and worry, and it's Eva who stoically maintains in her stead.

This occurs after the family has already found a handful of survivors huddled in a warehouse near the railroad; they await a train which, they hope, will take them somewhere else, some place unafflicted. One of the men has assumed a position of dominance in the group and uses it mostly for his own gain; then more people arrive, and eventually a gaggle of wayward souls has accumulated, all trying to extend their lives by a few more days.

They wait, and they wait; they run out of water, but a woman has a goat that can provide milk. One of the goats is stolen by a teenage boy living in the woods whom Eva has befriended. A man and his wife and children show up, and Anna recognizes him as the one who shot her husband. She has no proof, and so they're forced to coexist. A woman speaks cryptically of The Just, 36 men chosen by God whom she hopes will bring an end to this plague. An old man talks of the sights he's seen, including people throwing themselves onto bonfires in hopes of appeasing whatever deity has wrought such anger on them.

No answer ever comes, and this is no surprise, coming from director Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher). Haneke specializes in the bleakest stories with ambiguous endings; his films are often incredibly difficult to sit through. He steers away from the graphic shocks this time, setting up instead a sense of dread that gradually eases up as the film progresses and the need for survival kicks in; his focus is not on what's happening but who it's happening to, and gradually our own need for an explanation disapates and we follow his gaze to the intermingling of these people, thrown together by fate.

Bad things do happen. Tempers flare, children die; Eva awakes one night to see a girl her age being raped. But a curious thing also happens, especially when one considers the films that Haneke has previously delivered: a sense of hope arises. These characters continue to strive; to put up with one another; to grieve and move on. The pacing of the film is often interminably slow, but wonderfully so; conflicts play out to their natural extent, and in them Haneke shows us a portrait of humanity that is sometimes terrible but pervasively beautiful. This is the work of someone who believes that there is an essential goodenss to people, and despite all the despair he evokes in these landscapes of death and flames, he shows us at the end a vision of simple, almost heartbreaking optimism and warmth.