Michael (2011)

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  May 26, 2012

  fb1364753347

  The premise for this film is more fascinating than the film itself. It is well directed and really well acted but it delves no deeper than the shallow end in any of the characters or themes. Everytime you think the film will take a dive in the deep end, it quickly paddles back to... read more the simple idea of the guy with a kid in the basement. The premise is such a complex issue but there is no exploration, just bland presentation. Because of this the minimalist, realist style does not work because the beauty of minimalism is that while you are watching a scene that raises subtle themes your brain is de-constructing the themes from the previous scene, but here I there is nothing to think about because it all surface deep, which makes some of the banality just so dull, especially the final 10 minutes.

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• 
  
  October 31, 2011

  danieljparsons

  Michael is a disturbing but quiet, largely evasive drama involving Michael - a man with a regular job who "keeps to himself", and whom hides in the specially locked and separately wired basement of his house a 10 year-old boy; Michael is a paedophile. The film shows Michae... read morel going about his day-to-day life for five months. He's a fairly private man, by necessity of course, though not without a social life. But in general, he goes to work, comes home, has dinner. Often, we see him interacting with the boy in his basement - giving him chores (the basement is an effect a miniature apartment - outfitted with it's own kitchenette and toilet), reading to him, sharing with him a meal. Aside from one moment of nudity, no sex is shown and is barely implied. The film doesn't try to show horrific abuse, though at the same time it's clear that the boy loathes Michael (there's no Stockholm Syndrome here). The boy has been lied to about his circumstances (we never see how he got there, or if his family are searching for him) but is intelligent enough to realise that he is being manipulated. The film takes a massive shift in the last 20 minutes with an unbearably tense final, prolonged sequence, and director Markus Schleinzer cleverly heightens the tension merely by showing people walking through rooms. The ending is incredibly courageous, refusing to offer any closure, answers, sense of justice or injustice, and provoked a very split reaction in the screening I saw (I was very much reminded of the reaction to the ending of Meek's Cutoff, with which Michael shares a similar detached - but not clinical - tone). However, the main problem I have is one of point. Why does the film exist? What is it trying to say? How am I supposed to feel? For many this was one of the film's virtues and indeed it's refreshing for a film - particular one with this kind of subject matter - to not entertain any usual conventions. The one thing it does show is that even though Michael is a monster, he still has a family that cares for him and whom presumably will have much to "deal" with after the film ends - unusually it will be them you are thinking of, not Michael, not the boy. But for much of the running time I wondered why I was watching it. Not that I was bored, that wouldn't be true - it's very, very well acted, interestingly filmed and edited, and quite gripping. But there just didn't seem to be much reason for the film to exist.

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• Naseeruddin Shah
• Mahi Gill
• Purav Bhandare
• Sabyasachi Chakraborty
• Irawati Harshe Mayadev
• Michael Fuith as Michael
• David Rauchenberger as Wolfgang
• Christine Kain as Mother
• Viktor Tremmel as Brother-in-Law

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