Writer/Director: Markus Schleinzer Starring: Michael Fuith, David Rauchenberger, Christine Kain, Ursula Strauss, Victor Tremmel, Xaver Winkler, Thomas Pfalzmann Not to be confused with the Nora Ephron film starring John Travolta, Austrian writer-director Markus Schleinzer’s Michael is an everyday portrait of a pedophile. (Yes, you read that correctly.) A very average-looking thirtysomething, Michael (Michael Fuith) spends his mundane days working in an insurance office. Then, when he arrives home after work, Michael closes the shutters of his windows nice and tight and heads down to the basement to visit Wolfgang (David Rauchenberger), the 10-year-old boy whom he keeps locked up down there. Michael and Wolfgang have dinner, wash dishes, watch movies and play games; then Michael ushers Wolfgang back to the basement and locks him up again... Schleinzer makes Michael’s disturbing sexual deviancy seem surprisingly normal. Except for one scene, Michael never becomes the stereotypical, creepy and deranged...
- 5/15/2012
- by Don Simpson
- SmellsLikeScreenSpirit
We first saw writer-director Markus Schleinzer’s Michael at Fantastic Fest 2011 and it literally sent ice cold shivers down our spine. Schleinzer’s film also screened in the main competition at Cannes Film Festival, and was an official selection at AFI Fest, Toronto and Chicago International Film Festivals. The film won the Golden Pram Award for Best Feature Film at the Zagreb Film Festival and the Special Jury Prize at the Miskolc International Film Festival. Strand Releasing will be releasing Michael on DVD in the United States on May 15, 2012. Since we consider Michael to be one of the creepiest pedophile films ever made, we jumped at the opportunity when Strand asked us to give away a few copies of the DVD to our loyal readership. Director: Markus Schleinzer Writer: Markus Schleinzer Starring: Michael Fuith, David Rauchenberger, Christine Kain, Ursula Strauss, Victor Tremmel, Xaver Winkler, Thomas Pfalzmann Not to be confused...
- 5/9/2012
- by Don Simpson
- SmellsLikeScreenSpirit
The Josef Fritzl affair and similar cases of horrendous incarceration revealed in its wake have now produced a sizable body of documentaries, feature films and fiction too, of which Michael is a minor, rather puzzling addition. The 40-year-old Austrian film-maker Markus Schleinzer, whose first feature film this is, has worked as a casting director on over 60 films, among them Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher, Time of the Wolf and, most significantly, The White Ribbon, on which he coached the child actors.
The eponymous Michael (Michael Fuith) is a 35-year-old minor official with an Austrian insurance company, who keeps the 10-year-old Wolfgang (David Rauchenberger) a prisoner in the soundproofed basement of his suburban home. Michael is a bespectacled, nondescript loner with a brother and sister both married with children. He largely keeps to himself, rejecting the advances of a female colleague, whom he physically throws out of his house when she intrudes.
The eponymous Michael (Michael Fuith) is a 35-year-old minor official with an Austrian insurance company, who keeps the 10-year-old Wolfgang (David Rauchenberger) a prisoner in the soundproofed basement of his suburban home. Michael is a bespectacled, nondescript loner with a brother and sister both married with children. He largely keeps to himself, rejecting the advances of a female colleague, whom he physically throws out of his house when she intrudes.
- 3/4/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Michael (18)
(Markus Schleinzer) Michael Fuith, David Rauchenberger, Gisella Salcher. 96 mins
The daily routine of an Austrian paedophile who keeps a young boy locked in his cellar was hardly something anyone was queuing up to see, but this challenges us, and itself, to take a look. At the same time, it thankfully averts its gaze from scenes of actual abuse. There are keen observations on parenting, privacy, power relations and more, but the flat, factual approach verges on dull, and the absence of empathy ultimately just leaves you feeling grubby. So get in line for the grimmest movie of the year!
This Means War (12A)
(McG, 2012, Us) Chris Pine, Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon. 98 mins
Two suspiciously close CIA buddies fall out when they discover they're dating the same woman – cue the misuse of government equipment and their own combat skills for one-upmanship. The romcom high concept is novel for a good reason: it's completely ridiculous.
(Markus Schleinzer) Michael Fuith, David Rauchenberger, Gisella Salcher. 96 mins
The daily routine of an Austrian paedophile who keeps a young boy locked in his cellar was hardly something anyone was queuing up to see, but this challenges us, and itself, to take a look. At the same time, it thankfully averts its gaze from scenes of actual abuse. There are keen observations on parenting, privacy, power relations and more, but the flat, factual approach verges on dull, and the absence of empathy ultimately just leaves you feeling grubby. So get in line for the grimmest movie of the year!
This Means War (12A)
(McG, 2012, Us) Chris Pine, Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon. 98 mins
Two suspiciously close CIA buddies fall out when they discover they're dating the same woman – cue the misuse of government equipment and their own combat skills for one-upmanship. The romcom high concept is novel for a good reason: it's completely ridiculous.
- 3/3/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
A film about a paedophile's home life by one of Michael Haneke's acolytes is an unbearable satire on parent-child relationships
Brilliant and macabre, this debut feature from Austrian film-maker Markus Schleinzer shows the ordinary life of a man called Michael, played by Michael Fuith. As well as being a conscientious middle-manager in an insurance office, Michael is a paedophile, keeping a 10-year-old boy locked in a reinforced cellar beneath his bungalow. The film is not merely a chilling insight into the day-to-day banality of evil, but also an unbearably suspenseful and tense drama. I can't think of any other movie recently in which I have wanted so much to yell instructions at the screen – especially in the final five minutes, as we approach, in Graham Greene's words, the worst horror of all.
Schleinzer is a former actor, and a prolific casting director with over 60 features to his credit,...
Brilliant and macabre, this debut feature from Austrian film-maker Markus Schleinzer shows the ordinary life of a man called Michael, played by Michael Fuith. As well as being a conscientious middle-manager in an insurance office, Michael is a paedophile, keeping a 10-year-old boy locked in a reinforced cellar beneath his bungalow. The film is not merely a chilling insight into the day-to-day banality of evil, but also an unbearably suspenseful and tense drama. I can't think of any other movie recently in which I have wanted so much to yell instructions at the screen – especially in the final five minutes, as we approach, in Graham Greene's words, the worst horror of all.
Schleinzer is a former actor, and a prolific casting director with over 60 features to his credit,...
- 3/2/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Hailing from the Michael Haneke school of brutally austere Austrian cinema, Markus Schleinzer’s debut feature, Michael, opens with a revealing bit of misdirection. A thirtysomething insurance salesman (Michael Fuith) comes home with a bag of groceries and quickly sets to work on dinner, frying up some ham and setting up a table for two. He summons a 10-year-old boy (David Rauchenberger), presumably his son, and the two eat quietly, their silence broken only by the kid’s request to watch TV that night. After the two retire for the evening, the true nature of their relationship is revealed in ...
- 2/16/2012
- avclub.com
Trace it to the 2006 Natascha Kampusch case or the even more terrible 2008 Elisabeth Fritzl one reverberating through into fiction, but longterm kidnapping is having a moment. Despite apparently opening with a card that claims otherwise, the incidents seem unavoidable inspirations for Frédéric Videau’s "A Moi Seule," which just had its premiere in Berlin, a film that tracks through the eight-year relationship between an man and the girl he kidnaps and hides in his basement. Emma Donoghue's acclaimed 2010 novel "Room" is narrated by a five-year-old kid who's lived his entire life in the claustrophobic space in which he and his mother have been imprisoned. And Markus Schleinzer's "Michael," which opens in New York this week after bowing at Cannes last year, gazes impassively at five months in the life of the title character, played by Michael Fuith, who's been holding a 10-year-old boy named Wolfgang (David Rauchenberger)...
- 2/15/2012
- The Playlist
Critics have described the Austrian thriller Michael as "unnerving" and "alarming," but these adjectives fail to properly capture the intense dread that lingers after watching the film's haunting trailer. Viewable below, it is disturbing on a level that may surprise you, considering there's no violence, gore or sex revealed. Instead, what's offered is a terrifying window into evil accompanied by a sickeningly jarring soundtrack from a broken jack-in-the-box. Michael centers on the secret life of a seemingly shy insurance salesman. Unbeknownst to the world outside his small soundproofed home, Michael (Michael Fuith) has a 10-year-old boy named Wolfgang (David Rauchenberger) trapped in his basement. This troubling feature exposes the five-month span the pair spends together. If you've watched as much Investigation Discovery as I have, you knew with a sickening certainty where this trailer was headed as soon as you spotted the soundproofed door. Michael's writer-director Markus Schleinzer admits his...
- 2/3/2012
- cinemablend.com
Markus Schleinzer‘s Michael is a movie I want to see and don’t want to see. The Austrian film, called a “haunting profile… detailed in excess with the aim to truly unnerve” by our own Raffi Asdourian after its Cannes debut (full review), is a calm portrait of a pedophile, the titular Michael, and his kidnapped victim. While some festival goers appreciated Michael for its boldness, others found the movie as sickening as its subject. “What The F*Ck Is Wrong With Everyone In Austria. Seriously.” Mike D’Angelo tweeted after sitting through a Cannes screening. Many festival attendees agreed.
Among critics, Michael is a divisive film, and I doubt it’ll find a large audience here in the Us, but it will see what I assume will be avery limited release starting February 15, so check your local art house theater schedules if you’re interested. The trailer below...
Among critics, Michael is a divisive film, and I doubt it’ll find a large audience here in the Us, but it will see what I assume will be avery limited release starting February 15, so check your local art house theater schedules if you’re interested. The trailer below...
- 2/2/2012
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
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