Director- Hans-Christian Schmid, Germany 2006
Based on a true story from thirty years ago, Requiem tells us about a girl, aged 21, from a pious Catholic rural background, who is subject to epileptic fits. Various pills work for a while, but then comes another attack. We see her at her first year at University, enjoying studying, having a boyfriend, but then, and particularly distressing for her, she finds that can no longer touch her crucifix- something seems to prevent her, and another fit occurs. She cannot understand why she is subject to all this, and during her fits hears voices and feels possessed by demons..... She turns for help to her family, her only girlfriend, her boyfriend, and to priests. She refuses the advice from her doctor to go to a psychiatric hospital, so exorcism is tried…
Very well acted, and the film enables us to feel in turn a deep sympathy for all the characters in their helplessness in the face of this situation, even, in the end, for the unsympathetic mother. Indeed, we feel the dark side of the mystery of the human condition.