Michael
“A triumph of uneasy cinema… Michael successfully drains the shock out of a frightening premise and instead delivers a keen observational thriller.” — Eric Kohn, indieWIRE
Screenplay: Markus Schleinzer
Producers: Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Markus Glaser, Michael Kitzberger, Wolfgang Widerhofer
Photography: Gerald Kerkletz
Editor: Wolfgang Widerhofer
Production designers: Katrin Huber, Gerhard Dohr
Costume designer: Hanya Barakat
In French, German and Dutch, with English subtitles
With: Michael Fuith (Michael), David Rauchenberger (Wolfgang), Christine Kain (mother), Ursula Strauss (sister), Viktor Tremmel (brother-in-law), Gisela Salcher (Christa)
Festivals: Cannes (In Competition) 2011
Melbourne International Film Festival 2011: TeleScope Award for Best New Talent from the EU
Cannes was not short of provocations this year. Markus Schleinzer, a long-time associate of Michael Haneke, offered this creepily believable account of the subterfuges by which an apparently unremarkable middle-aged man keeps a kidnapped young boy locked in his house. — SR
“Look beyond the subject matter to the film itself and you will discover a rigorously responsible, endlessly disquieting piece of work, acutely sensitive to issues of exploitation… Haneke is an obvious influence on a film that strips away emotion and sentimentality to focus on an almost forensic presentation of the evidence… David Rauchenberger is especially impressive at suggesting the vulnerability and steeliness of [the abused boy]… The restraint of his performance is in tune with a film that takes the sting from a white-hot topic and transforms it into a troubling, thought-provoking and quietly disturbing drama.” — Allan Hunter, Screendaily
