Requiem

Toronto International Film Festival Program Book
2006

Requiem
Hans-Christian Schmid
GERMANY, 2006
German
93 minutes
Colour/35mm
Production Company: 2315 Filmproduktion/SWR/ARTE/WDR/BR
Executive Producer: Uli Putz
Producer: Hans-Christian Schmid
Screenplay. Bernd Lange
Cinematographer: Bogumil Godfrejow
Editor: Hansjorg Weissbrich, Bernd Schlegel
Production Designer: Christian M. Goldbeck
Sound: Dirk W. Jacob
Principal Cast: Sandra Hiller, Burghart Klaussner, Imogen Kogge, Anna Blomeier, Nicholas Reinke, Jens Harzer
Production: 2315 Filmproduktion

Alternately shocking and meditative, Requiem is a bold triumph for director Hans-Christian Schmid and his muse, actress Sandra Hiiller.

The film concerns a young woman in the thrall of religious ecstasy and the failed exorcism that ultimately kills her. But this seemingly exploitative subject matter—see last year’s screamfest The Exorcism of Emily Rose—gives way to a more subtle and interesting idea: Schmid gently suggests that meek Michaela Klinger (Hiller) allowed herself to be overcome by this possession. She welcomed it to avoid confronting the baffling social mores of seventies West Germany and a cruel, abusive mother. The social shifts and pressures of that confusing age in a sense compelled her into a medieval state of being.

Schmid builds his case with a sure hand. The film’s extremely attractive camera work both frames and prods the action along. Dreamy, shadowy moments are interspersed with Klinger’s shy, tentative social interactions with her peers. Then—BAM!—her (diagnosed as) epileptic episodes spring forth in violent, painful relief.

These discomfiting moments haunt her through her boisterous early days and these scenes perfectly capture the confusion and otherworldliness of her journey. Rejecting psychiatry and medical solutions out ofsome inner fear, she ultimately turns to a young, crusading priest (Jens Harzer), himself out of place in the contemporary world. As he spins an increasingly dubious and demonic narrative about her condition, the film takes a more sinister and conspiratorial turn. We can only feel sadness as this lovely young woman and her gormless parents are backed into the horror of a primitive exorcism.

Hatred of the modern world has long been presented as a responsible moral position by socially conservative politicians. The consequences of following these beliefs to their logical extreme are wrought powerfully and painfully in this exceptional film.
—Noah Cowan