2 March 2012 3:25 AM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »
A film about a paedophile's home life by one of Michael Haneke's acolytes is an unbearable satire on parent-child relationships
Brilliant and macabre, this debut feature from Austrian film-maker Markus Schleinzer shows the ordinary life of a man called Michael, played by Michael Fuith. As well as being a conscientious middle-manager in an insurance office, Michael is a paedophile, keeping a 10-year-old boy locked in a reinforced cellar beneath his bungalow. The film is not merely a chilling insight into the day-to-day banality of evil, but also an unbearably suspenseful and tense drama. I can't think of any other movie recently in which I have wanted so much to yell instructions at the screen – especially in the final five minutes, as we approach, in Graham Greene's words, the worst horror of all.
Schleinzer is a former actor, and a prolific casting director with over 60 features to his credit, »
- Peter Bradshaw
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