Fantastic Fest 09: KAIFECK MURDER Review
[This review originally appeared as part of my coverage of the 2009 EFM and reappears now with the film about to screen at Fantastic Fest.]
In today's modern world it is easy to think that we have reason above evil, that what we took as spiritual forces in less advanced times can now be recognized as nothing more than superstition and fear. But as traveling photographer Marc and his young son Tyll are about to learn there are places where 'modern life' has made little impact, places where evil is very much alive and well and fear may be the only appropriate response. Places like the remote Bavarian village of Kaifeck.
Marc - played by Benno Fürmann, currently winning raves on the festival circuit for his performance in Jerichow - is a freelance photographer, currently on assignment to capture images of traditional Bavarian culture. Traveling the country with his camera in tow, and perhaps seeing the trip as a chance to bond with his sensitive son Tyll - though it's just as likely the boy has been forced upon Marc by his ex-wife - he has brought his boy with him, soothing the child's boredom with the promise that he will teach him photography as they travel.
When the pair arrive in the tiny village of Kaifeck it appears that they've struck gold. Removed from modern civilization, Kaifeck seems exactly the sort of town Marc has been searching for. It is picturesque, quaint, prototypically German and in the midst of an ongoing festival in which the townspeople dress up as monsters and roam the streets in the days between Christmas and Epiphany to frighten evil spirits away. The pair decide to stay until the end of the festival, renting a room in a converted local barn from friendly young innkeeper Juliana (Alexandra Maria Lara from Downfall). But small towns, it seems, often have secret pasts and it takes just a day for the first hints of Kaifeck's to emerge ...
Decades earlier the town was the scene of a grisly murder, an entire family slaughtered in their home with a pick axe, the killer never discovered. Locals believe the farmhouse where the killings occurred is now cursed and frown on anyone snooping around the grounds. And yet Marc finds himself strangely drawn to the place, his nights filled with dreams that border on visions - visions filled with details about the killing that he cannot possibly know. He seems to be walking in his sleep, waking in the mornings fully clothed and muddy, his body taking on some sort of stigmata - visible signs mimicking the injuries of the slain family. He becomes a man obsessed, driven to understand what happened here but the more he digs the more the villagers close ranks ...
Esther Gronenborn's Kaifeck Murder is a striking piece of work: an intelligent, beautifully photographed thriller shot through with supernatural elements and anchored by compelling performances from Lara and Fürmann in the leads, Fürmann in particular working with a sort of quiet but intense charisma that makes him a sort of German equivalent to the great Mads Mikkelsen. Gronenborn neatly balances the genre elements with strong character work, slowly teasing out character details as the plot unravels and Marc is drawn deeper into the mystery and his own visions. Though it starts with a cold reserve that mirrors its lead character, the film soon takes on a sort of hallucinatory quality as Marc slowly loses his grip on what is real and what is vision, a sense of panic slowly growing in Tyll as his father becomes progressively more unpredictable.
Kaifeck Murder is precisely the sort of genre film that doesn't get made in Hollywood any more, a sharply crafted morality tale that doesn't give a damn about the thirteen year old audience that drives the horror box office. It is complex, subtle, striking stuff, impeccably written, directed and performed by all involved with not a single false note to be found. In many ways Kaifeck Murder is a straight-line descendant of the old Grimm's fairy tales, a reminder that no matter how civilized we may pretend to be there is always something dark and nasty hiding in the closet simply because we bring that darkness with us ...
