Michael

A short story about a lonely guy (11.06.2012)

The film Michael was promoted as "a debut from the casting director Michael Haneke," which seems to me about as relevant as saying that this bread was baked by Vláčil's barber. As if it wasn't enough to know what it's about. Michael (IMO) contains no humorous scenes (on the contrary, it contains one scene that is downright horrific, Wolfgang's Christmas gift to his captor), yet after watching it, you have a sense of peculiar mischievousness. Of course, the final cut and the music for the credits play a significant role in this, but I rather wonder if, with all the sensitivity towards the victim, filming a clinical record of a pedophilic abductor imprisoning and abusing a young boy in a basement, while in the real world he must switch to the mode of an innocent uninteresting citizen, is just naturally a comedic concept. Sorry, that's probably a flaw in me, right? Nevertheless, with every Austrian film, I continue to be amused by how its creators portray their homeland with the sensitivity of old communist propaganda teaching about the declining West. (30.09.2023)

A mature, focused and precise debut by casting director Jessica Hausner and Michael Haneke. The rumor that this is Haneke-style plagiarism is false. Schleinzer learned a lot from his master (sharp editing, a cool, analyzing camera, TV coverage in the background), but he's going his own way. He is far from being a surgical precise pathologist of the plot, and he is not afraid to immerse himself in it, to use sarcasm, connect events more and not make only narrow Haneke fragments of chance. Michael is a riveting dive into the abnormal normality of a pedophile. Despite the heated theme, he has a measured and civilian tone, he is able empathize and does not manipulate. The hypnotic sequence of scenes at the end escalates and ends with a typical cut "to the pace" just when it is supposed to end. Next to Dresen's Stopped on Track, the bright highlight of the 46th annual Karlovy Vary IFF. (06.07.2011)