Michael

Markus Schleinzer

MICHAEL                   B                     

Austria  (96 mi)  2011  d:  Markus Schleinzer

The icily cool Austrian veneer doesn’t cover up the fact this is a creepy little film, one where the audience can’t help but hate the protagonist (Michael Fuith), a non-descript, ordinary, Fassbinderish Herr R. (1970) kind of guy who goes to work every day at an insurance company, keeps his home neat and clean, and never draws attention to himself so as not to expose the fact that he’s keeping a 9-year old boy locked in his basement.  We watch the outside of his house in the evening when the shades automatically come down closing the window, literally blocking out all signs of the outside world.  Markus Schleinzer worked as a casting director for fellow countryman Michael Haneke from 1994 to 2010 before venturing out on his own to make this first feature film.  It’s by no means a show stopper or one that even attempts to impress, instead it moves with that glacier pace of meticulous control, where every shot is designed to establish the ordinary rhythm in the man’s life, where keeping a boy hostage as a sex slave is all part of his normal routine, offering nothing salacious or sexually provocative, but the age of the boy and the locked bar on the basement door tells us all that we need to know.  The boy himself (David Rauchenberger) is never named, where his identity is completely submerged, but he’s adorable and docile, obviously accepting of his circumstances for some time now, as he’s allowed to join Michael for dinner, sitting at a table with perfect placemat settings, and together they clean up afterwards and wash and dry the dishes like a well oiled machine.  The boy colors pictures and regularly writes letters to his missing parents that Michael never sends, but in obsessively orderly fashion, keeps the letters in a hidden file, much like the Nazi’s maintained meticulous train records for the transportation of the Jews to all the death camps. 

This emotionally repressive style of film has become familiar to filmgoers by now, where the purposeful exactitude is hard to fault, as the composition and editing scheme reveals not only what’s happening, but also makes a comment on the suffocating psychological implications by choking out any hint of emotions onscreen, where it plays out like a recorded diary, never adding any personal commentary, as the interior world of Michael may be pretty close to a void, where the director often captures him sitting all alone in the dark.  Occasionally, however, something stirs inside and he takes the boy out on a field trip excursion, like a visit to a petting zoo, his hand always firmly clasped, where for a brief moment he’s actually part of the world outside.  But for every moment of optimism, it also produces that wincing moment when he’s locked back inside again like a caged animal on display whose only contact is during regular visiting hours, where he’s forced to capitulate to Michael’s world, whatever that may entail.  Where this film does make a brief break from the typical austere stylization is adding bits of humor, where outlandishly enough this occasionally becomes a comedy about pedophilia, where the audience is primed to laugh and poke fun at the sexual possessor, to see what a fool he can make of himself, similar to the use of violence in Haneke films, like FUNNY GAMES (1997), where the films play to the audience’s expectations.  But every variation from the norm is extremely brief, where the established routine dominates the landscape.  

As anyone with children knows, it’s hard to raise children alone, and despite Michael’s orderly world, he’s no exception, as kids act up, get hurt, cry, or even get sick, all things beyond his control, challenging the range of his parental skills, as he has to keep his prized possession alive and in good health. We get clues into the boy’s deepening psychological depression and his moments of rage, while also seeing Michael occasionally off his game, as sometimes the boy just isn’t in the mood to play and instead feels listless and disconsolate, where it ends up as Michael boiling over with inner rage.  He’s a man used to getting his way, and as the boy gets older, he’s less inclined to show any interest in what Michael wants from him, instead growing more aloof.  This presents a challenge for Michael, who has no experience whatsoever in human relations or how to motivate the disinterested, and every attempt leads to a further misstep on his part, where it’s his all controlling world that is coming apart, like steam exploding from a boiling teapot.  He lives in constant denial over his captive’s abuse, filling his life with ordinary moments, watching television, living in an ordinary world, but occasionally he gets a good look at himself in the mirror which makes him feel exasperatingly feeble, like a child himself, helpless and uncomfortable, as apparently he’s never matured emotionally beyond the age of his captive, where all he can be is a bully on the block.  A few years ago, there was a common theme of movies using the Turtle’s song “Happy Together,” often to humorous effect—see Wong Kar-wai’s HAPPY TOGETHER (1997) or Christophe Honoré’s MA MÈRE (2004), for instance.  Here the director has chosen a variation on a similar song to a chilling and strangely provocative effect.       

Le Quattro Volte (The Four Times)

LE QUATTRO VOLTE (The Four Times)                   B+                  

Italy  (88 mi)  2010  d:  Michelangelo Frammartino

This is cinema of the sublime, a rare instance where it’s near impossible not to be amused and enchanted by a director’s vision and imagination.  A few years back there was a festival film called HUKKLE (2002), a near wordless film from Hungary that drew many admirers for its unusual format, basically telling a story with few words.  This does the same, only there are no words whatsoever and there’s little, if any, storyline.  Instead there’s a series of images shown in a documentary manner, though one wonders if it even fits the documentary format.  First and foremost, the film is utterly gorgeous, shot by Andrea Locatelli in Calabria, Italy, easily the most beautiful film seen so far this year where the focus of attention is the verdant green rolling hills where a herd of goats grazes in a natural state of grace.  This is Bresson’s Balthazar (1966) without the Sisyphus-like series of human horrors that follows its short lifespan on earth.  These goats already live in their own paradise, free from any human interference save for the constant barking of herder dogs and the worn out footsteps of an aging shepherd who has a hard time keeping up anymore, who has to continually stop and rest along the way, where amusingly, and politely, the goats wait for him to sit down before they rush ahead along the narrow pathway through the woods.  The goats themselves are natural scene stealers, as these are among the healthiest goats ever to grace the screen and they frolic and freely jump onto anything they can climb, showing a rare exuberance in the wild, where the constant bleating has a calming effect.  But it’s the beauty of their environment that holds the key to this film, as that ultimately is the film’s subject.  The goats are simply non-professional actors willing to work cheaply, adding their own unadulterated realism to every shot, shown using long, extended takes and natural sound.

As he herds the goats back home where they spend the night in a gated pen, the shepherd visits the church where he picks up a package of dust collected from the floors of the altars, which he places in his water at night as his medicine.  Come morning, there is a rooftop shot overlooking the goats laying in their outdoor pen as a truck pulls up and parks nearby, as the occupants disappear and slowly a procession passes down the street, where afterwards a poor girl is penned in by the herder dog that continually prevents her from passing, an amusing game between man and beast that idly passes the time until the girl is finally left unimpeded.  The dog is more interested in kicking the rock out from underneath the truck’s tire, causing a near catastrophe in the making.  But the camera amazingly swings away in the opposite direction as the viewer can only imagine what happened, an interesting diversion before swinging back and showing a truck that rolled downhill backwards through the goat’s pen, as they are now milling around the street like curious bystanders.  This is a particularly humorous sequence as interior shots show goats bounding up the stairs, some standing on tabletops, others just bunched together around the poor shepherd who never made it through the night.  As the villagers carry his casket and lay it to rest, one can still hear a heartbeat which is quickly segued by a newborn goat falling out of his mother’s amniotic sac, dropping to the ground where it remains squashed on its knees until it can gather enough strength to stand.  This gorgeous white kid goat becomes the focus of the camera’s attention, seen in various stages with other goats, both adult and baby goats, where their interaction couldn’t be more human, as the babies are cleverly mischievous at play and can’t wait for their mothers to return when left alone in a cleanly swept barn all day. 

One of the most transcendental shots is following this white kid goat as it passes through the mountainside hills and gullies with the bigger goats, but gets stuck in a dry gulch that the others easily cross, losing contact with the herd.  With utter effortlessness, the vulnerability of the goat is exposed by its unanswered bleats, a heartbreaking moment that may be the shot of the film as after wandering aimlessly all day he finally lays to rest at night beside a giant tree.  After a quick series of shots that hold the same image affixed during changing seasons, the focus is shifted to the tree, which becomes the subject of the annual Spring Tree Festival.  In a visualized pageantry, dozens of villagers are seen climbing and surrounding the tree in an attempt to harvest it, a largely symbolic gesture that signifies the season for harvesting and the gathering of wood for fuel.  Later more trees are subsequently reduced to ordinary sized firewood that is charred in a hand built smoker.  This ancient ritual is a painstakingly deliberate process of building the hut out of sticks and mud, then slowly packing and drying the mud until it can withstand heat, adding smoke holes for ventilation, transformed into a giant smoker that turns the wood into usable charcoal, which is later distributed throughout the village.  This is a beautifully edited, naturalistic, cycle of life film that inventively keeps changing the focus of the film, using plenty of wry humor and exquisite imagery that connects one section to the next, always finding involving footage that shows ageless wisdom and maturity behind the camera.  This is extremely enjoyable filmmaking, highly original and compelling throughout.  While the cyclical nature is a story in itself, it’s the beauty of the landscapes, the rooftop overviews, and the inventive compositions that continue to delight the viewer, as it’s easy to become transfixed by the near Biblical austerity of a timeless place that continues to exist in the present much as it has for centuries.