Requiem (2006) User Reviews

"Requiem" in the US

[brianr54 · 7/10 · 27 May 2006]

Just saw the US premiere of the film at the Seattle International Film Festival. I have seen the American version of this story, but this is a far different film with a different goal.

While the US version concentrated on the more sensational parts of the story and the aftermath, this movie is much more interested in the drama of the situation and avoids the 'creeky door' effect of the US version. The filmmaker is very dispassionate about attempting to convince you one way or the other if it was a possession or a woman's psychological breakdown and I find that most appealing. (The US version also tried to ride the fence in a sense, but it was more obvious which "side" it picked as there were many horror movie moments, not present in this version.) The acting was universally GREAT and all actors were so very convincing in their roles. It will be interesting to see how American audiences that venture out to see this version accept it (It will NOT be the hit that "Emily Rose" was here as this will be considered an art film in America and I doubt will be widely released.) Look for it in the US and check it out!

A sad, and true, tale.

[jase-18 · 7/10 · 28 February 2009]

A sad tale of a young girl's aspirations disastrously ruined by her and her family's inability to separate her religion from her mental illness.

The script is commendably non-judgemental, despite the subject matter, and the the movie's early seventies setting is re-created so convincingly (with muted colours and almost dogme-like camera work) that one might forget that the film was shot only three years ago.

Some may find that the film ends before the story does, but this is merely a refreshing refusal to pander to sensationalism that is completely in keeping with the naturalistic realism of the film as a whole.

Religion vs. Science

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 6 April 2010]

In the 70's, in the countryside of Germany, the epileptic Michaela Klingler (Sandra Hüller) joins the pedagogy course in the university against the will of her pious mother Marianne {Imogen Kogge). However her father Karl Klingler (Burghart Klaußner) rents a room in a sorority house and the religious Michaela travels to Tübingen. Along the semester, Michaela befriends her former high school mate Hanna Imhof (Anna Blomeier) that forces her to seek medical assistance and falls in love for the student of chemistry Stefan Weiser (Nicholas Reinke). When Michaela has a crisis, she stops using the necessary drugs and believes she is possessed by demons, and her health gets worse. She decides to seek out the priest Martin Borchert (Jens Harzer) that believes in exorcism instead of the progressive parochial priest Gerhard Landauer (Walter Schmidinger) that tries to convince her to go to a psychologist. When she has an intense breakdown, her mother together with priest Borchert decide to exorcise her with tragic consequences.

"Requiem" is an impressive dramatic movie about the fight between religion and science. In accordance with the introduction of this film, the story would be based on a true event. The acting is wonderful, giving credibility to the plot, and the dialogs and characters present a great discussion between the dogmatic religion and reason. Michaela is very well developed and it is easy to understand her confused state of mind since she had a repressed and overprotected upbringing. Hannah represents the logic and the reason; Marianne and priest Borchert represent the backward and dogmatic side of the church; Karl and priest Landauer represent the in-between these two sides. "Requiem" is not a pleasant or entertaining feature but highly recommended for fans of a powerful drama with magnificent acting and the excellent German cinema. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Requiem"

I found this 'true story' quite moving and rather sad.

[morgan_peline · 7/10 · 8 November 2006]

To be frank I completely disagree with the above critique. I found this film quite moving and very sad - I still can't stop thinking about.

I thought the way it was shot moved it along fairly nicely and was thankfully fairly anti- Hollywood which was a nice relief. Of course most Americans will probably not enjoy it because it's too subtle, nothing explodes and they actually have to think for a change rather than being told how to feel. If Hollywood had done this film it would have been all moody lighting, scary music and SFX - it would have been just another badly done version of The Exorcist (which I think is also a great film).

I think what I found the most interesting was that because this film was done in such an understated manner, you could actually understand what Michaella was going through in a much more realistic, believable manner.

There is a beautiful scene where near the end of the film Michaella's boyfriend takes her to her parents house because she is in such a bad state. She is soon surrounded by her parents and two priest all praying and chanting at her trying to exorcise her demons - her boyfriend steps away as he really doesn't know where to put himself or what to do as he watches the chanting - he looks like he is witnessing the dark ages of superstition; all completely anachronistic to the time he lives in.

Documentary style was a great choice - there were no true good or bad guys. And Michaella truly believed that she was possessed. So in a really strange way it was more an analysis of faith and belief. At the end of the day she, her family and the creepy priest all absolutely believed that she was possessed therefore she was.

Was that a good or bad thing, considering that nowadays most people barely believe anything at all?

Maybe she did fight an epic battle against demons for our souls like Saint Margarita - can anyone prove otherwise?

Better than Exorcism of Emily Rose

[crappydoo · 6/10 · 21 April 2008]

I've seen both The Exorcism of Emily Rose and this one and found Requiem to be far better and realistic than the other. Emily Rose, in my opinion, was supposed to be commercial Hollywood film. It lulled me to sleep whereas Requiem kept me interested during its entirety. The chief reason for this being the phenomenal performance by the lead actress.

The direction of the film is great as well, since it clearly allows the viewers to form their own decision whether the girl is possessed or schizophrenic. Viewers make their decisions based on which side of the faith they lie. It runs a bit slow but is an excellent psycho-drama devoid of any gratuitous scary scenes.

So overall, in case you like scary stuff, watch Emily Rose; which is not such a great scary movie either. However, if you like psychological dramas and do not wish to watch movies that make you jump out of your seat, watch this one.

Unbelievable - Watch this film

[njjones-3 · 10/10 · 25 September 2007]

Phew this is hard to put into words.

At first I thought the cinematography was stunning, beautifully shot and the period was captured perfectly - I felt like I was watching a film shot in 1972 and it brought back early memories of the 70s.

The script was wonderfully subtle, there was absolutely no judgements about the characters. It would have been very easy to show the mother as a cruel an twisted woman but instead you could empathise with her, she thought she was doing the best for her daughter and that made the whole thing more tragic but also more real and beautiful.

To me the central message of the film was that life, however short is something to celebrate. The girl makes references to St Katarina who only lived a short time but did many wonderful things. She may not have escaped her strict and cruel mother for long but at least she did it and had a wonderful time for a while.

I kept having to tell myself they were actors. The depiction of the girl's first kiss at college was unlike any other I've seen. They captured the clumsiness and true feeling of the situation perfectly.

And finally the soundtrack - you'd think that deep purple wrote 'Anthem' for this film. Earlier we see her dancing ecstatically to the track when she's finally free at college and then we later see the relevance when it's used to play out at the end of the film.

I'm not sure I'll ever see a better film that this and I recommend it to anyone who occasionally likes to be moved by a movie.

Slow, steady, dramatic, and a powerful indictment of insidious religious extremism

[secondtake · 7/10 · 30 October 2011]

Requiem (2006)

When a positive, well-meaning, troubled young woman meets an ungodly end at the hands of religious zealots, it matters that it is based on fact. So when you see what is going on here to this girl, leaving for college and struggling with some kind of mental disorder, you not only feel for the character. You are astonished about a culture that still has room for this.

The portrayal of mental illness has transformed enormously in the history of movies partly because psychology has changed, too, from Freud and Jung to now. Even looking at the last few minutes of "Psycho" (which everyone conveniently forgets), you see that arch confidence and inaccuracy of mid-century psychology. And now, in 2011, we know how to treat epilepsy (the purported disorder of the main character) and even schizophrenia (likely an additional problem judging by the symptoms) with some level of control.

But this movie is set between the two, around 1971, and so with hindsight we are shocked and frustrated by the people around our main character showing either a "get over it" attitude of a more deadly "god will intervene" kind of attitude. Neither was a good thing.

And yet this woman, played with unusual conviction and brilliant by Sandra Huller, is all about trying to survive. Because of her upbringing she interprets some events as God rejecting her (she can't reach her rosary beads during one epileptic fit), and of course this leads to priests, and to the priests thinking they know how to possibly cure the poor girl. Eventually real life exorcisms are performed, and in a weird synchronicity, a real-world version of the 1973 American film, "The Exorcist."

This one is German, and instead of making everything strange, it makes everything universal. We sometimes think of religious extremism as an American trait, but in fact it is everywhere. This version gives it a Roman Catholic overtone and yet grounds in the the real world, where priests are rather ordinary folk. not mythic brooding types (though the younger priest here is, vaguely, a German Damien). The original "The Exorcist" it turns out was based on a German Lutheran (not Catholic) boy, yet another small echo of one movie to the other.

The comparisons can go too far, for sure. This is a modern movie in what is one thread of contemporary European filmmaking--understated, realist, tautly filmed, issue based movies, many of them from Denmark or Germany. It's a great complement to what is being made here (in the U.S.), with a different flair for dialog and sometimes a more elaborate production sense. This is not small budget but it is straight ahead and almost bare bones in its approach, thoughtfully made and edited. And pertinent now in the sense that fanaticism in any form is to be questioned before it's too late.

Sandra Huller, an exceptional talent

[shishaldin · 9/10 · 3 January 2007]

Requiem works for many reasons--an intelligent script, understated direction, a somewhat verite camera style--but most of all it works because of Sandra Huller. For all of Michaela's exceptionalism, at no point could I doubt this character. As a recovering Catholic myself, I'm sensitive to the role religion, especially Catholicism, plays in people's lives; and Huller, in my opinion, creates the real thing: implicit faith that needs neither to advertise nor to apologize. Michaela's faith isn't about doctrine or rules but the meaning of life--more specifically, about living the meaning of one's own life, including its less attractive implications. Her faith makes her vulnerable to the devil (or, if you prefer, to her imagination that the devil is messing with her), but her faith also endows her growing suffering (and her eventual death, which she clearly foresees; note her reference to "martyrdom" in one of the last scenes) with an abundance of the same meaning that has sustained her life. She is peaceful at the end ("I must walk my path to the end.") That may be hard for a non-religious person to understand, but to someone raised on stories of the great saints, as Michaela was, it makes perfect sense. It is even something to be grateful for.

Requiem pulls off a bit of cinematic legerdemain in making Michaela a relatively open, non-fanatical, non-prudish woman in spite of the depth of her faith. Her real-life original, Anneliese Michel, wasn't much like that. She was a very conservative Catholic deeply opposed to the liberalization then occurring in the Catholic church after the Vatican Council. Her death and the subsequent trial of her parents and the exorcists forced a kind of confrontation, at least in Germany, between Catholic traditionalism, which has an entirely literal belief in spiritual realities and regards demonic possession and exorcism as established facts, and ecclesiastical modernism, which is embarrassed by such medieval notions and therefore preferred to take the position that Michel was "merely" mentally disturbed. (And if she were, did she suffer any the less? Was her faith any less meaningful to her?) Traditionalists regard Michel, her parents, and the exorcists as martyrs to a modernist church disloyal to its Christian past, and Michel's grave is today a pilgrimage site primarily for conservative Catholics. You'd never guess any of this from Requiem's very sympathetic treatment of her story.

Spectecular...

[AwaixJvd · 6/10 · 11 December 2011]

Well I am a big fan of horror films, and I love the "exorcism" movies and have seen them, some of them were excellent, some average and some wastage of time. "The exorcism of Emily Rose" was a master-piece, "the exorcist" was a good attempt according to that era and "the last exorcism" was a total wastage of time.

Well to my view, this film "requiem" has done things so well and calculated that I felt impressed. There were no SFX but film still kept me grabbing till the end. This is the beauty of a film that you are involved in it without adding some "value added" things.

The film shows a girl who was possessed and is thought to be epileptic. I was waiting for some ghosts or demonic appearances in it but they didn't and in my view this was another victory to the director, that he didn't add some useless material and kept the viewers indulged in the topic.

I would highly recommend this film, as this was another of great films to watch.

Nice shooting, bad storytelling

[ysbrant · 4/10 · 13 September 2006]

The great thing about this film is that it has its total and very own style. It stays perfectly loyal to the time in what it is set. Even camera movement is adjusted to it: sudden zooms, hand-held camera work and nearly no music added. Acting performances are interesting and mostly convincing. Although this will help you through the film in an interesting way, it is not enough to make it a good film...

I have been looking for the conflict in this film and I have been looking for the central message of the director. They are there alright, but I have not experienced a single moment of being sucked into or swept out of the movie. I think it would be far more shocking to read actual facts about the girl to whom this happened for real, than to watch this fictive movie that misses its clue.

well done

[jajaklar · 8/10 · 21 December 2006]

This movie doesn't have a clear message. Instead the title "requiem" really shows what this is about: looking at a person's life in every aspect of it. So the storytelling has to be much more from a distant viewpoint. Some may call this documentary-style as it seems to show a real social case study. Personally it reminded me a little bit of the early Scorseses style of movie-making (e.g. taxi driver): neutral viewpoint, but still subtle messages within, and finally the big clash in the ending, when all strings of the story developed throughout the movie come together.

For me, this is the best way of doing such a movie. First everything feels so normal as you watch the movie. In the end extreme situations begin to develop. Because you know the context, even it is a really extreme situation, it seems to be not at all inexplicable but very real, which it actually was. I could personally feel the helplessness with this situation, because I could not blame anybody in the movie, there was not a side who did anything wrong on purpose. All are just human beings, who are presented perfectly and believable through very good acting. The final shot of the girl's face with background organ music expresses many feelings I have about the movie.

All in all it is a very good movie, but of course it still does not feel as great as some of the best movies of the time. 9 stars

Wish I Had Known...

[jfgibson73 · 6/10 · 24 August 2009]

Requiem is a drama that follows the story of a German girl, Michaela, as she deals with disturbances in her life that could either be physiological (mental illness, epilepsy) or spiritual (demonic possession). It is a very humane, realistic slice of life that happens to be inspired by a real-life tragedy. The girl who the film is based on actually died after several attempts were made to exercise the demon, and there are supposedly recordings as well as official recognition from the Catholic church.

My main problem with this movie was that it was marketed as a horror film. It is closer to something Lars Von Trier might have done ten years ago. The words you will see most often used to describe it are "subtle" and "understated." It is very effective at showing what it might have really been like to be a young girl with this affliction. It does not sensationalize or exploit Michaela, but rather uses her story to make us think about how faith affects us, among other things.

I thought it was extremely well done. I was just in the mood for something else when I happened to watch it. I had seen Emily Rose and thought this would be a more psychological retelling of those events, but it is a completely different side of the story. I recommend it to viewers who appreciate character studies done in a cinema-veritae/documentary-style approach.

What happened to this film?

[Aristides-2 · 5/10 · 5 February 2008]

Yes, the film took its time; I assumed that the writers were new to the medium and unsure of themselves. Everything had to be explained, the viewer was not trusted to pick up on things and it sure dragged. But the basic story, that is, the real story of events that happened to the young woman back in the 70's is a natural for re-telling. 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose' took this story and reduced it to a genre-horror film. Scary and well made but a religious propaganda film down deep and it failed to tell the fascinating story. But 'Emily Rose' led me to look into the story of the young German woman, who actually suffered this terrible fate and died a horrible death at 26. Further research led to 'Requiem' which was described, by the more serious film critics, as a much different and better film than 'Emily Rose'. Well, yes and no, the no part being: what happened to the end of the real story? Why wasn't it filmed? The real event was that the parents and the two priests starved the poor kid to death while doing their voodoo. Folks, they were arrested, went to trial and were found guilty. But then the German justice system went awry and they were all given suspended sentences and put on probation for a few years. Isn't this part of the real story worthy of adding to a movie? All that slowness and redundancy didn't leave time for the dramatic payoff! Or perhaps the film's producers lost financing or felt that the shooting ratio was too much, too expensive and frankly (from their point of view) too dull to make some bucks in North America. We'll never know, of course and in the meantime, the story of that young woman is waiting to be told.

Sandra Huller deserved the Silver Bear win for Best Actress

[JuguAbraham · 7/10 · 26 July 2020]

Top notch performance by Sandra Huller, who thoroughly deserved the Silver Bear for the best actress in this film at the Berlin Film Festival. A very good film on epilepsy and mental illness, not possession by the evil spirits. Ms Huller has been consistently performing well in the films,such as "In the Aisles" and "Toni Erdmann."

Watery

[nycritic · 6/10 · 26 May 2007]

Unlike its sister movie THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE, this German movie, simply called REQUIEM, stays a little closer to the events but minimizes the effects of Michaela Klinger's possession -- and at times, even questions it -- to a level that becomes an exercise in tedium. Sure, it's okay to watch Michaela spastically dance to Pink Floyd songs under the mirrorball, but after a while, not much else -- other than her erratic behaviour and her hostility towards her mother -- happens here. REQUIEM at times could be a mediation of its times, a clash of the old and the new, but other than that, it doesn't offer too much depth into a more serious matter: after all, even if a possession actually did take place, the truth of the matter remains -- one girl died at the prime of her life and from the reports, it was a rather gruesome death at that, and priests were brought to trial in response to her death.

Aching, compelling character study

[abbywts · 9/10 · 5 December 2007]

I had heard nothing of the true story on which this was based beforehand, but the opening lines indicate that this is really not a strict presentation, but a jumping off point. That's fine, because movies, in general, are very poor at rendering true events. It is really a character study, using events as a springboard.

Note: this has spoilers coming up. The movie is presented in a stark, almost documentary style. It presents us with a young woman who is torn between two worlds-the one she has known and its obligations and restrictions and comforts, and the world she is about to know, with its freedoms, and excitement and scariness. She leaves the small town for life as a young adult in a university. We see her starting out and wonder if she can cope. She gets made fun of somewhat on the first day of class, for example. But, she does cope and starts to really come into her own. Doing well in class, having friends, and a first love. But her illness comes into the fore once again, and eventually, kills any hope of independence.

Personally, I'm not religious and that may color my take, but this film seems to strongly suggest religion as folly. It doesn't beat you over the head with it, but it's there. She suffers from epilepsy, and the film mentions the prospect of psychogenic psychosis as being the cause of her delusions. The same physical abnormalities in the brain that cause epilepsy, can also cause damage to the part that senses reality, and sense of self. Someone raised in a strict religious household can easily interpret this as signs of God or the Devil or whatever. At the time, medications were pretty much hit or miss, and so it seemed cruelly hopeless to sufferers who kept getting a 'miss'. It wasn't as clearly understood then, either.

The film succeeds in showing what well meaning but clueless people can do when they yield to superstition. The main character's best friend (a beautiful friendship!) really represents the opposing view. She keeps trying to take her to a hospital and tells her these visions are due to another cause, but, alas, religion has an answer to every rational impulse. It's also interesting that her episodes occur in times of greater stress, especially her parents visiting, or being scolded by her mother.

The casting for this movie is fantastic. Every actor large and small played their role perfectly, a rare feat. From the virtuoso performance of Sandra Huller, to every side character like her character's sister. The only thing keeping this from a ten, the ending was unsettled. Too abrupt, seemed unnatural somehow.

Birth hour for one of Germany's most successful actresses these days

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 2 October 2016]

"Requiem" is a German movie from 2006, so it has its 10th anniversary this year. It runs for approximately 90 minutes and was directed by Hans-Christian Schmid, one of Germany's most successful filmmakers in the last two decades. The writer is Bernd Lange and you can say that this is definitely a contender for his most known work. And "Requiem" is also the very first full feature performance for actress Sandra Hüller, who was in her late 20s at this point. Hüller recently made the headlines with "Toni Erdmann", in which she played the main character's daughter, and this film we have here, from a decade ago, is how it all began. It was a big breakthrough, just like for Diehl in "23" (another Schmid film), as she won a German Film Award for her portrayal and so did supporting actress Imogen Kogge (the mother). Supporting actor Burghart Klaußner (the father) was "only" nominated this time.

This movie is the story of a young woman who is living her life in awe of God (due to her education and upbringing) and things get really complicated if she is confronted with the modern (not God-fearing) life at all when she becomes a regular student, who aspires to become a teacher. What makes things even more complicated is the fact that her health is steadily getting worse and the people she trusts suspect that it has to do with her being somewhat possessed by the devil. The result is something that can almost be called a German version of "The Exorcist". We do not see that much of the ways they try to "cure" her, but we read it at the very end and also see one very memorable scene, in which Hüller goes all in with acting as possessed and evil as possible when her parents come to see her. The film certainly takes a dark turn in the second half and it was much darker than I expected. So I am a bit surprised that the film received so much awards recognition and that it did not go under the radar like for example "Kreuzweg" did, a film with a somewhat similar subject, at least in terms of the German Film Awards. And while I prefer the other film I just mentioned, I still think "Requiem" is worth checking out. A thumbs-up from me, but not one that is as enthusiastic as I hoped it would be.

A wake up call to the damage belief in demonic possession cause

[swissguy-176-727028 · 10/10 · 26 July 2015]

Spoiler alert

Brilliant portrayal of the fatal damage done by the misguided belief that a serious mental illness coupled with epilepsy is not physical or psychological but rather is demonic and must be exorcised. As an atheist I found it extremely difficult to watch the damage being done by the religious people around the young woman. Well acted and drives the point home of the folly of religion gone too far. This film is based on a real life case, that of Anneliese Michel of Bavaria. The film "The Exorcist" was based on the same case. In real life the Priests attempted 12 exorcisms on Anneliese only stopping because she died, in her parent's home, of exhaustion. Thankfully there was justice in that her parents were convicted of manslaughter.

The acting was top notch and the camera work, mies-en-scene and editing all added to a real life feel to the movie. Kind of like a Lars von Trier film. I think this film is truly aptly named "Requiem". It is a testament to a life sadly wasted to the folly of religious belief gone too far.

not scary at all

[mrdonleone · 6/10 · 9 April 2009]

I am going to try to make you see this movie is not a horror film. there I was, waiting for the horror to start. but I was waiting hopelessly, because this movie is not about the creepy side effects of the (based on true events) story about a girl who is possessed by a demon. maybe I should be more precise: the movie is totally not about religion (the word 'requiem' in the title, what's the purpose of it if there's no explanation in the film?), it's about a disease. a psychological disease. at least, that's what I understood. it seems the director must have been thinking there were already too many horror films with this theme. an he could be right. there are literally hundreds of movies about exorcism and things like that. so if you want a real horror film, than do not watch this movie. it's not scary at all. in fact, the moment you think it's beginning to get scary, the movie ends. and in a certain way, it really is scary when the end credits roll over your screen: they mention how the real story ended. with that notion in your mind, you have something eerie crawling over your back. but that's all.

Boring snoozefest

[aqua02beat · 1/10 · 16 December 2007]

I kept on expecting something big or exciting to happen. Then around one hour in, i just wanted something to happen, anything. It was one of the most boring movies i've ever seen. The pace was so slow. It moved like a snail with a handicap. And the whole ambiguity thing that they tried to do about whether it was possession or epilepsy/psychosis was horrible. She never even agreed to go visit a psychiatrist so how can anyone rule out schizophrenia? What she had surely fit the symptoms of it to me. Because of this, the movie failed b/c it was apparent to me that she had schizophrenia and just needed the medication for it. THis makes her death (due to exhaustion? What the heck. Maybe if she didn't do so much screaming during the exorcism she wouldn't be so exhausted enough to die from it) seem totally pointless. The only reason i stuck through it was b/c i was having a lazy Sunday and just wanted to lay there on my couch and there was nothing else on.

So i warn you, if you have low tolerance for slow moving, boring, non-eventful movies, with practically no plot, stay clear of this movie.

Requiem

[film_riot · 9/10 · 18 September 2007]

This film by German director Hans Christian Schmid is all driven by character. The story is about a young woman named Michaela who has epileptic attacks and thinks that she might be possessed by the devil. Michaelas family sphere is very catholic and she is very religious herself. Schmid catches the atmosphere of the 70s in Bavaria extraordinary well, maybe due to the fact that he grew up in a small catholic town himself. "Requiem" is full of love for its characters, even for those, who seem not to deserve this love at first. Schmid never chooses the easy way, he knows that there are more sides to every character and every story. Someone else would have made a film that only blames religion, but this film doesn't make fun of the religious nature of their characters. Besides all of this, Schmid creates moments of absolute beauty and joy, and this is what makes "Requiem" a really great piece of cinema. And if you have someone like Sandra Hüller playing the lead, what you get is one of the best German films of the past years.

Proud not to entertain

[Ibelin · 1/10 · 11 July 2006]

This film suffers from it's documentary approach...

I didn't experience what Michaela Klinger (in real life Anneliese Michel) experienced, at all! Instead, the filmmakers betray her point of view by showing how totally ridiculous church people behave.

So, since the antagonist is a jerk anyway, there's no real conflict! And no suspense, unfortunately.

I just couldn't believe the arrogance of this film. Even a mainstream movie like "Emily Rose" managed to get deep into the characters and create interesting human conflicts.

After listening to interviews with the director, it seems he even wanted it this way - anti-audience!

Is Hans-Christian Schmid proud not to entertain?

A sad tale about faith and liberation !!!

[avik-basu1889 · 9/10 · 14 June 2015]

Requiem is based on the real life incident of Anneliese Michel which also served as the basis for the Hollywood film 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose'. But while that was a standard Hollywood-ised commercial horror film, Requiem is a much more realistic, understated and sedate film that tries to examine the events leading up to the girl's supposed possession.

First of all, it will be very wrong to approach 'Requiem' as a horror film at least in the conventional sense. Directed by Hans- Christian Schmid, this is a film about faith and liberation. It's very Bergman-esque in the way it deals with the effect of religion on the society as a whole as well as individuals. Michaela and her family are devout Roman Catholics and they truly believe in their religion. They are good, mild mannered people who live decent lives. We are informed right at the beginning that Michaela has an epileptic condition which had forced her to drop a whole year of school. But then she gets accepted in University and becomes adamant to go even by going against her mother's strong apprehensions. What follows is a heartbreaking story of a sweet, adorable and smart, young girl completely falling apart.

The film beautifully tackles the concept of self-guilt. The mindsets of people around you and lack of liberty can have a very chaotic impact on an unstable and impressionable mind. Michaela was a devout Christian, but she also wanted to be a liberated young girl and study and see the world without being subjected to repression. But certain incidents and her family members' attitude towards her(although they only wanted her to stay safe) made her feel more and more guilty about herself and her actions. Once you reach a breaking point and start believing that what you're doing is morally wrong and God will not accept you for it, it can have a very negative impact especially in the case of Michaela who already was medically ill. Although the director clearly makes a case against the supposed possession of the girl, but never does he make the Church and the priests out to be villains. As a matter of fact everyone in the film other than Michaela loves her and only wants her to be happy, safe and healthy.

The central performance by Sandra Hüller is brilliant. She portrays a wide variety of emotions ranging from happiness, sweetness, love, anger and ending with utter madness. The scenes towards the end of the film are absolutely heartbreaking. The director has to be appreciated for dealing with this subject with such humanism without resorting to shoddy and mechanical alternatives. When the film ends, you can't help but feel a sense of melancholy and sorrow especially knowing what the consequences were in real life after the narrative in the film ends. Beautiful film.

Sandra Huller was brilliant! Film portrayal of church and family very "humane" as well

[bopdog · 9/10 · 14 September 2008]

I was hesitant to watch "Requium" at first, because I dislike horror movies. The US version based on the same real-life story was pretty gruesome, I heard. But when an uncut version came on the telly I tried a bit, liked it, and kept watching until the end.

Sandra Huller (sorry, my English alphabet cannot make the two dots thing) is an amazing actor, in my view. I always believed her. She evoked so many things at once--- a girl from the early 1970s, a first year university student, and a damaged and fragile soul trying to cope with what must have seemed a living hell for her. That last bit, the hell bit, wasn't always pleasant to contemplate in this film. But Huller's performance made it vivid and real for me.

I went online and found photos of the real girl from Germany, and what she looked like at that time. Unbelievably horrid! Evidently, whatever "really" happened, the poor thing suffered horrendous pain and damage. Huller subtly brought that out, without creating a melodrama.

Another facet of this that changed for me after viewing the movie was the Roman Catholic priests involved. When I first heard the encapsulated version to the effect that a young German girl was killed at the hands of priests who believed her to be possessed, I formed an impression of ignorant, cruel, and rather stupid peasants. Upon seeing the movie, however, I began to see how even loving people (her parents and the priests) could possibly have been lead down a slippery slope. Doesn't mean they weren't a bit naive, or even ignorant, but hardly cruel. They all meant well. The real girl had epilepsy, and that, with complications, was what lead to her death. It did not seem to be neglect on her family's or church's part.

On the other hand... we'll never know, will we?

Influence of religion on a young girl and her old parents.

[FilmCriticLalitRao · 4/10 · 11 August 2008]

Requiem is an absolutely dark film directed by a relatively young film maker Hans Christian Schmid whose other films have tackled light themes. It is based on a true story that took place in 1970s.It talks of the omnipotent influence of religion on a girl suffering from epilepsy,her parents and friends.We see that the lives of this girl's parents have become absolutely hellish as she is having a lot of epileptic fits.As she is from a family of devout Christians,some priests are called to exorcise her.Requiem is on the few films made in recent times which shows the compelling forces of religion in a troubled person's life.The atmosphere of 1970's Germany has been marvelously pictured as due to old clothes,cars and house,we are led to believe that the film is really happening in 1970's Germany.Those were the times when young people in German cities including Tubingen had best possibility of recreation in the form of discos.This film's principal protagonist is a determined girl who works hard for her studies.Requiem is a film with restrained performances from its protagonists.The prickly attitude of the parents is acceptable as they wanted to find a solution to their girl's dilemma.