How Long Is “Soldate Jeannette”?

Austrian director Daniel Hoesl takes the reins for this eccentric comedy with a satirical edge. Fanni (Johanna Orsini-Rosenberg) is a middle-aged Viennese woman with a familial scandal in her past that is never fully explained. She develops an utter disregard for all material comforts - one so strong that even after her landlords stop by and indicate same-day eviction, she scarcely takes notice. After they forcibly lock her out of her building, she steals an automobile from a dealership, retreats to the woods, burns all of her money in a bonfire, and eventually takes up work on a livestock and potato farm. Meanwhile, another employee of the farm, Anna (Christina Reichsthaler) grows equally disenchanted with the grunge of farm chores and the grotesque come-ons of a male co-worker, who has her routinely submit to him for sexual trysts; she also begins to long for the comforts of urban living, such as money and fine dresses. In the days that follow, these two women from radically different walks of life develop an unlikely bond and begin to change places with one another.