Michael (2011)

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH EVERYONE IN AUSTRIA. SERIOUSLY.”

                            - Mike D’Angelo

D’Angelo’s above tweet after watching Michael (2011) at Cannes Festival, although not quite politically correct, conveys the difficult to describe feeling that makes you question why you would torture yourself by voluntarily watching something with this sort of subject matter.

Markus Schleinzer is better known as a casting director, however he has now tried his hand at directing and his debut, Michael premiered at Cannes to mixed reviews. 

Michael is about a man, unsurprisingly, called Michael. He wakes up every morning and drives to work selling insurance. He drives home and cooks dinner. His day seems to generally follow a routine. His routine differs from the norm, however, because he keeps a young boy locked in his basement. The relationship with the boy at times appears to be almost paternal, but there are serious implications of sexual abuse throughout, and the boy, Wolfgang, fights, kicks and screams at almost any opportunity he has. The situation appears to have been inspired by the famous Fritzel and Kampusch cases, which only serves to make the narrative more disturbing. The fact that this fictional film has its roots firmly in reality is also established in its plain, almost voyeuristic film style. There are only diegetic sounds, the only time we hear a song that isn’t being played from within the film is over the credits. The shots are generally all mid-shots, avoiding close-ups or establishing shots. There is no fast paced editing, no dissolves of image or sound making the transition from shots and scenes incredibly obvious. Nothing is clarified for the audience through cinematic trickery which supplements the idea of voyeurism.

Although he has little to no social skills, Michael is able to blend into his surroundings, he’s able to hold down a job and even be considered for a promotion, and he’s clearly known in and around his neighbourhood, enough to have short conversations with people in the neighbourhood. Michael, while not obviously attempting to fear-monger, points out that a paedophile could be living behind any door in your neighbourhood, unknown to you, or even their family.

One of the key aspects of the film is the relationship between Michael and Wolfgang, his young captive. The reason that this key aspect is so interesting is because if you put aside the locked doors and the molestation, the relationship is almost paternal, with day trips, Christmas spent together, dinner eaten together, washing up and despite all of Wolfgang’s attempts of kicking and screaming behind closed doors, he acts docile and causes no scenes outside of the house, when he has the best opportunity of escape. This is not to say that Wolfgang has Stockholm syndrome, because it’s clear that he feels no love for his captor, but the relationship is certainly an interesting one.

Despite the opening statements of this review and the subject matter, the film achieves an appearance of banality. The bland routine that Michael has (not including his fetish of imprisoned children), mixed with the unexciting film’s style make for an almost forgettable film. The audience are unable to relate to either character, although we can sympathise with the young Wolfgang, we know nothing of his past; all we see is his current suffering, which makes empathy almost impossible. Even if we ignore the child molestation that seems to be the driving force for Michael, he seems to have very few social skills, and with the exception of his family, has little to talk about past the small talk of short encounters. However there are constant implications that remind the audience of horrific situations going on behind the mundane exterior. These are not just implications of the molestation (because thankfully this is never really shown explicitly), but also implications to time, subtle words in conversations that imply that this has been going on for years. 

Another factor that makes it seem bland is the plain style, almost making the audience a distanced voyeur, watching from a distance and also keeping an emotional distance from the characters, which doesn’t tap into anything out of the ordinary. Recently, films about human monsters (murderers, rapists, paedophiles) create even more feelings of disgust by humanising these characters. This allows the audience to be lulled into relating to them, sympathising with them, or even liking them, only to be even more horrified later on when they commit their horrible acts. Michael stays away from this technique, it appears that the aim of the film is not to create the feeling of disgust within the audience; it is not to make the audience feel uncomfortable. The aim is also not to simply raise awareness of situations such as this one, because the film was clearly made with a fairly low budget and is not the classic idea of a commercially successful film. If the idea was to bring an important issue that people don’t want to openly discuss to the mainstream it would have been better to follow the path of Taken (2008) which used the very real problem of kidnapping and forced prostitution in Europe as a sub-plot for an action-packed thriller. So if the aims aren’t to horrify or raise awareness, what is the aim of Michael? Here lies the issue with the film. Why? It doesn’t entertain, it doesn’t educate, and it doesn’t show a new angle to a familiar story. The reason why the film was made is just another aspect of the film that remains unexplained; it is there, but like the details inside the frame, but there are no close-ups to clarify this for the questioning audience. It is almost the textbook definition of Roland Barthes literary concept ‘The Death of the Author’ and ergo the birth of the reader – taking the power away from the filmmaker and giving it to the audience to draw their own conclusions. 

The subject matter of the film means that it is not a fun film. The banality of the film’s style means that it is not an interesting film to watch. However, the putting the two together was a shrewd move by Schleinzer and makes the film, not only a very respectable film, but almost respectful of the situation it portrays. It doesn’t belittle the plight of the families of missing children, it doesn’t belittle the suffering of the children, and yet it doesn’t demonise the paedophiles. It simply places it all on the screen, announcing that is continues to happen, and then allows the audience, the watchers who are unable to intervene, the unfortunate voyeurs, to draw their own conclusions.

Written by Edward L. Corrigan on 28/02/2012