Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Sandra Hüller | ... | Michaela Klingler | |
Burghart Klaußner | ... | Karl Klingler | |
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Imogen Kogge | ... | Marianne Klingler |
Anna Blomeier | ... | Hanna Imhof | |
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Nicholas Reinke | ... | Stefan Weiser |
Jens Harzer | ... | Martin Borchert (Exorzist) | |
Walter Schmidinger | ... | Gerhard Landauer (Exorzist) | |
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Friederike Adolph | ... | Helga Klingler |
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Irene Kugler | ... | Heimleiterin Krämer |
Johann Adam Oest | ... | Professor Schneider | |
Eva Löbau | ... | Krankenschwester | |
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Anne Berger | ... | Studenten |
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Alejandro Esquerra | ... | Studenten |
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Kutrín Kreredis | ... | Studenten |
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Hannah Neumann | ... | Studenten |
It is the 70's, and in the German countryside the epileptic Michaela Klingler joins the pedagogy course at the University against the will of her pious mother, Marianne. However her father Karl Klingler rents her a room in the sorority house and Michaela travels to Tübingen. As the semester progresses, Michaela befriends her former high school friend, Hanna Imhof, who forces her to seek medical help. When Michaela has a crisis, she stops taking her medication and believes she is possessed by demons, and her health gets worse. She decides to seek out a priest, Martin Borchert, who believes in exorcism whereas the progressive parochial priest Gerhard Landauer tries to convince her to go to a psychologist. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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.