Michael is a very uncomfortable and unsettling film that is mystifying in it's minimalism as it is disturbing in its subject matter. The title character is a very stereotypical Austrian businessman working at an insurance company. When he gets home from work with bags of groceries, he walks through his kitchen to the door to his cellar. As he opens the door we notice right away that there is soundproofing foam on the inside of it. Weird.
At the bottom of the stairs there is a metal door with a cross-brace lock on it. He opens it and flips a switch in the circuit breaker next to the door. Inside is a young boy, Wolfgang, about 10-years-old. He has a nice-looking kids room, a bed and toys, a sink and a toilet. It seems Michael keeps him down here as his personal and secret rape slave.
The film moves along very slowly with not much ever happening. At one point Michael, who is as geeky and affected as you can imagine an insurance man might be, goes on a weekend ski trip with friends from work. At another time Wolfgang suggests that he's lonely, so Michael goes out to a go-kart track to find another boy to steal and lock up with him. The man's motives are never totally clear, aside from bizarre control and, of course, sex.
Writer-director Markus Schleinzer, who has mostly worked as a casting director for Michael Haneke to this point (we see where he got his bizarre and frank story or sexuality from!) paints a very interesting, emotionless picture here, using minimal color (mostly Michael's house and existence is white and beige) and no score. We never really understand what he's thinking and can only assume certain things. Does he represent all of Austrian business culture or all Austrian men? Is this just one man's story of dangerous obsession? It's never clear - and that's part of what's so great about this film.
There is no judgement, putting us in the remorseless emotional space of a co-conspirator to this heinous act. Furthermore, the few times that Michael's strictly controlled world seems like it might collapse, we worry that he will be caught - a classic Hitchcockian trick of alignment and post-modern sympathy.
Schleinzer surprises us several times with unexpected events or outcomes of certain actions. We are never comfortable and always expecting the unknown. This is a great trick and makes watching the film more engaging that it might be otherwise (say, in a more mainstream story about pedophilia, slavery and abuse). I'm not totally sure there's a lot in this film, however, and think that the meta-emotional reactions we might have to watching the film is more important than the story itself. I really like those aspects, as a film-goer who likes to be put in an uncomfortable space, but I wish it could have been a great plot and a great meta-story.
Stars: 3 of 4
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