Superb performances enrich this restrained drama about a quiet pedophile’s home life with a kidnapped boy. Michael is employed at an Austrian insurance company. A solitary and somewhat irritable worker, his behavior gives no indication that at home he has a 10-year-old boy locked in a soundproof room in the basement. Once the shades are drawn at the suburban house and the boy, Wolfgang, is let out of his room, the two enact a twisted variation of normal family life with dinner and a bit of TV, a jigsaw puzzle or a trip to the zoo. Although the film does not show any explicit sex, it provides constant reminders of what lurks just off screen and Michael’s psychological exploitation evident in interactions where Wolfgang tries to test his power with his captor in a way that disturbingly echoes normal preadolescent parental conflicts. By telling this dark story with the cool, impassive gaze of an outside observer which sometimes results in a kind of grim humor, and without making any attempt to explain Michael’s behavior, director Markus Schleinzer—whose casting work with other masters of Austrian unease such as Ulrich Seidl, Jessica Hausner and Michael Haneke will come as no surprise—creates a strongly disquieting portrait of evil.

TRAILER




Austria 2011, 96 min. Written by Markus Schleinzer. Photographed by Gerald Kerkletz. With Michael Fuith, David Rauchenberger. Strand Releasing. In German with subtitles.
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