***½/**** Image B Sound A- (IFC) B+ (Mongrel)
starring Sandra Hüller, Burghart Klaussner, Imdgen Kogge, Anna Blomeier
screenplay by Bernd Lange
directed by Hans-Christian Schmid
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Like most pop epics, The Exorcism of Emily Rose was all about being sure. One had to throw down for the concept of the physical manifestation of Satan–any human considerations were swept aside in the affirmation of God's merciless will. And if certain college girls were crushed to pulp (a sentiment which extends to the general expendability of humankind), so be it. Thank goodness, then, that there's a movie like Requiem, based on the same case that inspired The Exorcism of Emily Rose but comparatively merciful in its mission. It wants to salvage the blighted life of an epileptic tossed around from doctor to doctor–one who, once presented with the beginnings of psychosis, had only religion and a mistrust of medicinal practice to fall back on. She's a victim of other people's indecision rather than of the Devil himself.
It is perhaps the natural inclination to milk the particulars for melodramatic excess: surely the notion of a frail, unhappy girl battling epilepsy, depression, and a confusing, pious upbringing should be the springboard for sensational shock entertainment. But Hans-Christian Schmid proves to be an extremely subtle director, capturing Michaela Klinger (Sandra Hüller) and her journey–first to university, then to madness just as she's about to define herself as a person–in unobtrusive yet pointed master shots. The film is without the sledgehammer of shrieking violins and the punch of rapid montage–instead, it gazes with sad powerlessness on Michaela looking sheepish when she declares for God at her first pedagogy lecture, looking uncertain at a dance, and twisting with fear whenever the voices start in her head. Requiem betrays an immense compassion as she tries to stake her claim and falls in a hail of confusion.
It's also quite complex in delineating the environment that leads her to her doom. Though she's granted a hometown friend named Hanna (Anna Blomeier) and a gentle boyfriend, Stefan (Nicholas Reinke), it's true that her heart belongs to home and church. She wants to break free from some of the more oppressive directives (embodied by her mother (Imogen Kogge), with whom she clashes on more than one occasion), but it's inevitable that her helplessness in the face of mental illness will pull her away from her new friends and into the arms of overbearing religiosity. Despite the attempts of her father (Burghart Klaussner) and a moderate priest (Walter Schmidinger) to sway her onto a psychiatrist's couch, they're overruled by Mother and a rapacious younger priest named Borchert (Jens Harzer) who firmly believes in the mighty, literal God and Devil that taint The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
Borchert comes off a little creepy and a bit too intense–it's a bit of caricatural shorthand and Requiem's only real misstep. Otherwise, this is a remarkably nuanced film. I can't remember the last time a movie was this intent on sitting and watching what people do; it telegraphs nothing, and barely foreshadows its tragic trajectory while setting up the characters and letting them be themselves. Whereas the Hollywood version programmed us for a foregone conclusion, this incarnation of the Anneliese Michel story, set in a West German village in the early-'70s, refuses to claim anything as predetermined. It allows and emphasizes choices based on circumstances and interpersonal interactions as opposed to the requirements of narrative practice.
Hüller's heroic turn must also be singled out. Her quietly-controlled hysteria is crucial for the film to work as well as it does: it needs extremely vivid behaviour to witness in order to convince us of its veracity. And Hüller rises to the occasion magnificently in what may be the single best performance of 2006. Her range is astounding as she goes from tense and withholding to a screaming mess at the sound of the Lord's Prayer. Her collaboration with Schmid (and her interpretation of the excellent Bernd Lange script) is the kind of harmonious relationship that gives Requiem its naturalistic street cred. Hüller provides a spectrum of behaviour that the filmmakers can release into the flow of other peoples' lives–the screen on which other people can make decisions, informed or not. She's the capper to a brilliant film that you simply shouldn't miss.
Requiem arrives on DVD stateside from Genius under the IFC imprimatur and in Canada from Mongrel Media. The two discs are virtually identical save the former's DD 5.1 audio and tacking on of some trailers, although its schlocky cover art does the film a major disservice. Neither disc is necessarily up to snuff, image-wise: ghosting artifacts (seemingly a PAL by-product) compromise the 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation, while the muted period palette is sometimes made sickly by a greenish tinge. Grain is a tad harsh, likely owing to a 35mm source print derived from a 16mm negative–which is certainly one method of preserving the movie's 'scope aspect ratio and vintage-documentary feel. The Mongrel platter's German Dolby 2.0 stereo sound is a little faint but mostly clear, as befits the dialled-down nature of the enterprise; moody, well-chosen period tunes are slightly more ambient with IFC's 5.1 option. A block of previews for Princesas, The Aura, Coastlines, and This Film is Not Yet Rated cues up automatically upon inserting the IFC disc; meanwhile, text synopses of the entire Mongrel Festival Collection round out its Canadian counterpart. Note that even though Mongrel lists Requiem's running time as 93 minutes, the film clocks in at 89 minutes on both DVDs.
89 minutes; NR; 2.35:1 (16×9-enhanced); IFC: German DD 5.1, Mongrel: German DD 2.0 (Stereo); IFC: English subtitles, Mongrel: English, French subtitles; 2 DVD-9s; Region One; IFC, Mongrel
