Featured Audience Ratings

• Carlos M

  
  A deeply disturbing character study that takes on the hard task of humanizing a monstrous psycopath, focusing on a three-dimensional human predator who can blend into society like many others - but wisely never offering easy reasons for his repulsive actions.

• Ryan M

  
  ***1/2 out of **** Michael (Michael Fuith) is a shy little man who works a competent job and seems to live a competent life with a competently spacy home and a competent body. In the eyes of pretty much any German citizen, he'd be a pretty decent working class male. He's… More
  ***1/2 out of **** Michael (Michael Fuith) is a shy little man who works a competent job and seems to live a competent life with a competently spacy home and a competent body. In the eyes of pretty much any German citizen, he'd be a pretty decent working class male. He's not particularly social but his behavior doesn't appear destructive. This is what Michael appears to be on the outside; just an average Joe. But as we see him return home on the night that the film begins, we witness the opening and closing of the fateful blue safe-like door in the basement; which conceals a small room behind it in which a young boy named Wolfgang (David Rauchenberger) is being held captive. Michael only lets Wolfgang out of his room between meals and occasionally to watch some evening television. Afterwards, he'll take the kid back to his room, close the metal door, and rape him. Michael is a meek gentleman on the outside and a pedophile monster on the inside. But nobody has to know this. The child has been his worst kept secret for what feels like a while now. But then again people don't usually come by his place often anyways. He's broken off most contact with the outside world for the mere satisfaction of his confused penis. I can totally understand the guy. At times, Markus Schleinzer's "Michael" borders on being exploitative. While the disturbing acts that are the film's central themes are shown mostly off-screen, it also lacks the finger-wagging moralism of most Hollywood pictures covering the topic of pedophilia although I think that is precisely why it is so effective, haunting, and horrifying. Most people will not think twice before writing Michael off as just another monster who needs to be locked away from society (even though he essentially does that on his own); while some, like myself, will view the film as a chance to see things from his point of view. We aren't supposed to sympathize with his problems, which aren't even presented as problems, but I think it's better off that way. The relationship between Michael and Wolfgang is strange and disturbing. Sometimes by day, Michael will take the boy out to the park or something like that; he's convinced the child that his parents don't want him back and that it's basically useless to run at this point, so Wolfgang puts up with everything that he has to go through. There are almost distressingly tender scenes in which these two clean together, play games together, and are able to uphold awkward yet decent conversations; while we also see them at their worst, in some truly brutal and uncompromising scenes. The film is sad, tragic, and real all at the same time; and it creeps up on you in such an unexpected way that it imprints images and concepts in your mind that won't soon leave. I love movies like this. Movies that refuse to conform to clichés or common stylistics. Films that have the bravery to exist on their own terms and according to their own rules. "Michael" achieves an impeccable sense of unease through a minimalist style and the brave, dedicated performances of both Michael Fuith and David Rauchenberger. The film is probably going to upset a lot of people with its grit and realism; there is an element of dark humor that will probably come off as particularly off-putting. But if you want a movie that doesn't sugarcoat the truth and doesn't try to shallowly moralize it, then you've found it. In a review, I'm supposed to recommend the movie for a certain audience. I think with a fantastic and creepy film such as this, the only audience that I can recommend it to is the one that's most like me. Conventional movie-goers be damned; for this is not a conventional movie, and it's not afraid to cross a few lines. It's exploitation with artistic purpose.

• Hassan V

  
  The premise for this film is more fascinating than the film itself. It is well directed and really well acted but it delves no deeper than the shallow end in any of the characters or themes. Everytime you think the film will take a dive in the deep end, it quickly paddles back to the… More
  The premise for this film is more fascinating than the film itself. It is well directed and really well acted but it delves no deeper than the shallow end in any of the characters or themes. Everytime you think the film will take a dive in the deep end, it quickly paddles back to the simple idea of the guy with a kid in the basement. The premise is such a complex issue but there is no exploration, just bland presentation. Because of this the minimalist, realist style does not work because the beauty of minimalism is that while you are watching a scene that raises subtle themes your brain is de-constructing the themes from the previous scene, but here I there is nothing to think about because it all surface deep, which makes some of the banality just so dull, especially the final 10 minutes.

• Daniel P

  
  <i>Michael</i> is a disturbing but quiet, largely evasive drama involving Michael - a man with a regular job who "keeps to himself", and whom hides in the specially locked and separately wired basement of his house a 10 year-old boy; Michael is a paedophile. The… More
  <i>Michael</i> is a disturbing but quiet, largely evasive drama involving Michael - a man with a regular job who "keeps to himself", and whom hides in the specially locked and separately wired basement of his house a 10 year-old boy; Michael is a paedophile. The film shows Michael going about his day-to-day life for five months. He's a fairly private man, by necessity of course, though not without a social life. But in general, he goes to work, comes home, has dinner. Often, we see him interacting with the boy in his basement - giving him chores (the basement is an effect a miniature apartment - outfitted with it's own kitchenette and toilet), reading to him, sharing with him a meal. Aside from one moment of nudity, no sex is shown and is barely implied. The film doesn't try to show horrific abuse, though at the same time it's clear that the boy loathes Michael (there's no Stockholm Syndrome here). The boy has been lied to about his circumstances (we never see how he got there, or if his family are searching for him) but is intelligent enough to realise that he is being manipulated. The film takes a massive shift in the last 20 minutes with an unbearably tense final, prolonged sequence, and director Markus Schleinzer cleverly heightens the tension merely by showing people walking through rooms. The ending is incredibly courageous, refusing to offer any closure, answers, sense of justice or injustice, and provoked a very split reaction in the screening I saw (I was very much reminded of the reaction to the ending of <i>Meek's Cutoff</i>, with which <i>Michael</i> shares a similar detached - but not clinical - tone). However, the main problem I have is one of point. Why does the film exist? What is it trying to say? How am I supposed to feel? For many this was one of the film's virtues and indeed it's refreshing for a film - particular one with this kind of subject matter - to not entertain any usual conventions. The one thing it does show is that even though Michael is a monster, he still has a family that cares for him and whom presumably will have much to "deal" with after the film ends - unusually it will be them you are thinking of, not Michael, not the boy. But for much of the running time I wondered why I was watching it. Not that I was bored, that wouldn't be true - it's very, very well acted, interestingly filmed and edited, and quite gripping. But there just didn't seem to be much reason for the film to exist.

• Francisco G

  
  This is hands down one of the scariest movies I've seen. Delving into the mind of a pedophile in such detail is no easy ride for sure. The implied sexual violations are brutal and never fall onto easy exploitative territory. Never knowing if the predator has feelings, is just a… More
  This is hands down one of the scariest movies I've seen. Delving into the mind of a pedophile in such detail is no easy ride for sure. The implied sexual violations are brutal and never fall onto easy exploitative territory. Never knowing if the predator has feelings, is just a monster, if he's seeking a relationship with a child, if he regrets it is explored into such detail we just want it all to end quickly. This is obvious a masterful work from the director who keeps things really well balanced without falling into easy shocking territory and always showing as well how the victim is affected throughout. It also needed a really strong lead to succeed and Michael Fuith delivers with scary detail. Not an easy watch but an intriguing scary ride on humanity's worse depravity.