Lemmings is a two-part drama, made for Austrian television, about the fate of Haneke's own generation that came of age after World War II. The first part, Arkadien (Arcades), depicts the generational gap between 1950s teenagers and their parents. A group of high school students grows up in the affluent but morally restrictive bourgeois world of the Wiener Neustadt. The challenges they are confronted with end up permanently damaging their personalities.