"I didn't know if I should pray to God or the Devil."
Quote from an interview with Armin Mayves
Mariana Dora's film interested me after I looked at some documentation about the case from March 2001. Among the broadcasts was a two-hour interview with Meiwes himself. In it, he talked about his childhood, about possible motives and, of course, described the sequence of events of that very day. It was on the basis of this interview that I was able to judge the film about its closeness to reality and the transmission of the very emotions that Meiwes experienced with his “meat”. Brandes.
I will not fall into the story itself in my review. I can only say that the action takes place at the beginning rather slowly, but after about half of the film, the director decides to jump over some significant details, to shorten the plot in places where this should not be done.
The atmosphere of the film from the first minutes carries this typically German style, which is quite difficult to understand. I would dare to compare it with the well-known film Buttgerright, Kozakowski and Marshall “German Fear” in 2015. I felt like Marian Dora was using similar techniques in his film. Germans like to make films with a deep opinion, limiting the plot. Some directors skip important scenes, others refuse many dialogues. In my opinion, "Cannibal" is shot in a very real German style.
I haven’t experienced a tooth-deep horror in a long time. It was this film that managed to give me a slightly murky feeling somewhere in the stomach. Although I had expected the blood-meat scenes, I still could not have imagined that they would be shown in such detail. By the hour of viewing, there was no way back and a kitchen knife flashed in Meiwes' hand. Brandes' cries at the time of castration seemed very close to real. All the graphic scenes made me think about the filming process itself. Such a true makeup of open wounds still need to be able to do. Especially the last half-hour of watching made me feel sick. Bleeding corpse, full basin of internal organs, but at the same time trembling kisses of Maiwes and caresses with, I apologize, the stump of a member of Brandes.
This observation will serve as an excellent transition to my main impression of the film.
It seems to me that the famous cannibal Armin Mayves in this film was not shown from the most natural point of view. In his interviews, he doesn't deny being bisexual, but to be so loyal and passive in his relationship with Brandes? I don’t believe he was like that on that day in March. The voice of the actor, and the whole appearance, speak about the pure sexual design of Maiwes. If you know his real story, you can easily understand that it has little to do with sex. I was waiting for the director to finally come to his senses and show the audience the same spark that was between Meiwes and Brandes that day. That unique power of absolutely mutual desire. The viewer saw only a rather banal snuff film, based on lust and dirty human instincts.
I can imagine that a person who does not know anything about the real story of this maniac will not be able to understand the film completely. The viewer is not shown a number of key points that would help with the perception of possible actions. In total, the film is certainly close to real events, but in its root is completely far from them.
2 out of 10
Cannibal: A Love Story, or Dialectics of Anthropophagy
What can lead a person to the path of cannibalism?
Speaking about the inaccessible civilization of ancient tribes living in the green wilds of the Amazon and the African continent, it should be understood from the outset that cannibalism in these human communities, living to this day according to the rules of predominantly pre-Christian and even pre-pagan existence (despite the fact that such tribes in the current century, not that literally forty years ago, there are at a minimum, which is somewhat comforting - among the well-known African tribes of cannibals, only the Yali were especially distinguished), is not unacceptable. This is an integral part of their life philosophy, on the basis of which a person is not just a friend, brother and enemy at the gates, but also one of the main sources of food, another weak link in their meager food chain and the fifth element of indispensable ritual intimidation, when the notorious enemy, who came with a spear, is sent to waste, is absorbed so that more others do not even dare to set foot in foreign territories. The prospect of being drunk to the bottom and marinated is not pleasant, is it?!
Cannibalism in modern society is mainly dichotomous. However, cannibalism in extreme conditions is seen as the only way to survive, when there is no other way out than to cross the usual food lines. From the well-known history of Uruguayan rugby players, who, however, ate the corpses of their comrades, but did not deliberately kill anyone in the name of food until a recent incident in Siberia, when four travelers lost in the forests, among whom the survivors Gorulenko and Abdulayev especially stood out, ate two of their extremist friends, knowingly having already committed murders, for nothing that the main witnesses of their cannibal feasts were only white mist and wild forest. Cannibalism for survival, a forced crime for the sake of preserving one’s life, in certain situations can be justified by at least the fact that predation is the very essence of human nature, killing one’s own kind in a person’s blood, in his genetic and spiritual code, only in someone the craving for death is hidden deep, and never wakes up from a coma, and someone under the pressure of certain, but insurmountable circumstances easily goes to crimes, and any. However, cannibalism can be promoted from human survival. Such hypothetical and, admittedly, extremely successful experiments of obedience were conducted in the occupied territories by the leaders of the infamous Japanese detachment 731, and the same situation with the coercion to the inevitable and necessary graying of comrades in misfortune was played out in 2009 in the horror “Hunger” 2009 indie director Stephen Hentges.
The prerequisites for the fact that one day an outwardly calm and cute person will begin to eat his own kind lie exclusively in the crooked space of psychological discourses, and even then not always. For example, for post-Soviet countries, where the poor, emptiness and alcoholism associated with it in their most terrible manifestations are hopelessly common, the so-called “household cannibalism” is characteristic. How many cases were there when, in a drunken frenzy rocking, people with a distinct imprint of a blonde shoe on their brow, killed, dismembered and ate their no less intellectually impoverished drinking companions, not really understanding what they were doing. In most of these incidents, where sometimes there was a kindred cannibalism (brother ate a sister or brother, son – mother, etc.), it was the result primarily of the moral degeneration of such people, for whom the concepts of norms and laws have long been devoid of their essentiality, although not always the reason for this is only the insignificance of their being at the bottom of the faceted glass. The cases of David Viens, Catherine Knight and Clara Moerova are characterized by the absence as such of their self-destruction before an act of bloodthirsty violence took place; here purely domestic and irrational cannibalism ceases to be the prerogative of dysfunctional individuals like Sucletin.
The everyday element of the incident hardly shades the second cause of cannibalism in modern conditions, when it is caused by certain psychotraumatic factors, under the influence of which an ordinary maniac with strange eating habits is cultivated. Dzhurmongaliev, who survived a stressful experience and hated the female sex, Chikatilo, before whose eyes his brother, the Spesivtsev family, was eaten, the cause of whose cannibalism lies in the general family nature of psychopathy and schizophrenia, Jeffrey Dahmer with his mass of perversions, was eaten. And a separate line Austrian Armin Mayves, whose biography is typical for a great many maniacs (bad upbringing, the element of incest, psychological isolation and a whole catechism of complexes and phobias not discovered and not cured in time), but his cannibal novel looks like something more than a collage of household and psychotrauma-induced human eating, since his victim, Jurgen Brands, himself wanted to be eaten. Mutual pathology, caused including elementary satiety.
Dedicated to this horrific event, 2005’s Cannibal is seen at first only as a sophisticated reenactment of the memorable events that shook Europe in 2001. Becoming the debut feature-length work in the big cinema for the German director Marian Dora Botulino or simply Marian Dora, not so much inheriting the cinematic traditions of Jörg Buttgerait and Pierre Paolo Pasolini, as forging its authentic syllable, Cannibal is nevertheless not just an extreme horror film, where without shadows of censorship, embarrassment and doubt, the Serious truth of hoc est quod is demonstrated, what it is like to be sat down and those who eat. Setting aside all the husks of anthropological references, Marian Dora creates an extremely frank existential reflection on the ordinary craving for death expressed by both Maiwes and his lover almost from a young age. Film-language ascetic, figuratively lapidary, at the level of total hyperrealism, "Cannibal", introducing the audience to Armin Mayves, tortures them with the icy water of silence. And this cold detachment of its silence is shocking with its dull routine at the moment when everything is already predetermined.
Any picture that comes into our field of view, goes a very difficult way. First, a beam of light penetrates the pupil inside, a special lens, the lens, creates an image on the back of the eyeball, and it is processed by the retina, a thin layer of light-sensitive cells lining the fundus of the eye. Then the optic nerve delivers this information received in light rays and perceived by the retina in the form of electrical impulses to the visual center located in the cortex of the occipital lobe of the brain, thus serving as a link between the eye and the central nervous system. At this stage, image properties are analyzed by numerous specialized zones. What colors, what shapes, moving or stationary, and most importantly - what is the nature of the image. In other words, what is it: a scene of violence, something funny, sad or maybe the image is completely neutral.
I cannot say that this scientific conclusion is absolutely accurate. It's not that important. Even if a small fraction of all this can be refuted, in any case, the path outlined seemed worthy of attention. Many may think that the eyes are solely responsible for what they see when they are active. However, I dare say that our brains are responsible for all the images that appear before our eyes. In theory, the brain generally a lot of what in response to the human body. Therefore, when watching a movie, viewers see pictures on the screen differently. Some are just eyes and some are the whole brain.
For example, "Cannibal" by Marian Dora. Last night was at the mercy of the film, the center of which is dominated by a well-known and shocking incident. Even though it has been 15 years since then, such a frightening event can not but cause skin chills. Of course, approximately (or even fully) imagining what will eventually happen, the viewer expects to see a kind of ordinary story about cannibalism and the related affairs.
It's not all that simple and prosaic. In terms of its atmosphere and psychological impact, Cannibal is very strong. The reality created on the screen is no different from the one in which the film was shot. It is truly frightening that in a well-fed and prosperous society there were two individuals ready to fulfill the most daring desires. The more interesting the reaction of people who are ready to watch the noble dismemberment of human flesh. A person who mindlessly puts “likes” in the Instagram tape or calls himself a sincerely religious soul, quite predictably will put the film, to put it mildly, a disappointing diagnosis. Like, a terribly immoral movie, it should be buried and not shown to anyone, or it is just created for moral freaks and terrible perverts. On the other hand, someone is able to look for various “pitfalls”, motives, urges. In other words, the first sees only violence, and the second explores the inner nerve of the plot. It is also possible that the actions recorded by the camera operator will serve as almost a visual aid for beginner Jeffrey Dahmer.
Without a doubt, this film leaves a dirty sediment after watching. Approximately such feelings appeared after the films "The Hills Have Eyes" by Alexander Azha and "Martyrs" by Pascal Lies. And they are still inferior to Cannibal in this respect, because for all their gloom and cruelty, they are ultimately perceived by works of art through professional actors, makeup and special effects. In the case of Marianne Dora’s project, the supposed artistry dissolves into the insane surreal world of two men with obvious mental disabilities. Unlike many Hollywood crafts, "Cannibal" is a pronounced "found film", which could be dusted in the depths of the upper shelf of a film archive. It is also important that there is a sense of touch with the court case, during which the bailiffs had to endure a 4-hour timekeeping of this video under the direction of the accused.
Naturally, if someone asks me for advice on “something scary,” I’ll think of Cannibal. Should I recommend it after a personal review? It’s hard to say whether you liked or disliked this movie, whether or not you were impressed. It merely demonstrates the eerie dimension in which a supposedly God-created human being is consciously capable of eating his own kind. A dimension in which such an act even includes meaning and definite purposes. Outrageous. Scary. Disturbing.
A strange man is looking for a candidate for his business online. This enterprise is that he wants to kill and eat a person. Oddly enough, those who wish are there. With one of these cannibals and carries out the plan. The whole film is devoted to the preparation for the planned, the rituals preceding the murder, and, of course, the naturalistic pictures of cutting and eating meat. The film is somewhat delayed and this delay further aggravates the atmosphere of total mental disorder.
Cannibal, of course, is strictly a niche movie. The director does not make concessions and discounts and does not seek to abandon shock therapy as his main artistic technique. It must be assumed that few people will even dare to look at the relationships of random people who turn out to be homosexuals, and even ending in cutting the body with its subsequent eating. A few words in defense of the film can be said. First of all, the director managed to convey the maniacality of his characters well. These are real madmen, whose psychopathology is further enhanced by kind and soft faces. Despite the extremely low acting professionalism and in general the absence of scenes where acting talent could be revealed, it was the obsession with strange desires that the actors managed to show in general. In general, the director is most important physiology. He often shoots the cannibal’s voluntary victim so that only his teeth are captured. In essence, we are talking about the transformation of the living into the dead, furnished with all sorts of preambles. Killing and eating are ritualistic. It's practically a mystery, albeit rather crude and repulsive. It seems important for a cannibal not only to eat human flesh, but also to give this act some deep psychological meaning, which he can perceive, despite his blinding common sense mania, quite soberly. They put their meaning into their own death and sacrifice. She wants to completely disappear from the world, move into the body of another person.
“Cannibal” is a harsh repulsive film with a dark poetry of death and decay. Shocking, physiological, glorifying the cult of the knife and raw meat, it contains elements of art that connoisseurs of the genre may even recognize outstanding. But given the content, this film will never be a subject of discussion for the general public.
What can lead a person to the path of cannibalism?
Speaking about the inaccessible civilization of ancient tribes living in the green wilds of the Amazon and the African continent, it should be understood from the outset that cannibalism in these human communities, living to this day according to the rules of predominantly pre-Christian and even pre-pagan existence (despite the fact that such tribes in the current century, not that literally forty years ago, there are at a minimum, which is somewhat comforting - among the well-known African tribes of cannibals, only the Yali stand out), is not unacceptable. This is an integral part of their life philosophy, on the basis of which a person is not just a friend, brother and enemy at the gates, but also one of the main sources of food, another weak link in their meager food chain and the fifth element of indispensable ritual intimidation, when the notorious enemy, who came with a spear, is sent to waste, is absorbed so that more others do not even dare to set foot in foreign territories. The prospect of being drunk to the bottom and marinated is not pleasant, is it?!
Cannibalism in modern society is mainly dichotomous. However, cannibalism in extreme conditions is seen as the only way to survive, when there is no other way out than to cross the usual food lines. From the well-known history of Uruguayan rugby players, who, however, ate the corpses of their comrades, but did not deliberately kill anyone in the name of food until a recent incident in Siberia, when four travelers lost in the forests, among whom the survivors Gorulenko and Abdulayev especially stood out, ate two of their extremist friends, knowingly having already committed murders, for nothing that the main witnesses of their cannibal feasts were only white mist and wild forest. Cannibalism for survival, a forced crime for the sake of preserving one’s life, in certain situations can be justified by at least the fact that predation is the very essence of human nature, killing one’s own kind in a person’s blood, in his genetic and spiritual code, only in someone the craving for death is hidden deep, and never wakes up from a coma, and someone under the pressure of certain, but insurmountable circumstances easily goes to crimes, and any. However, cannibalism can be promoted from human survival. Such hypothetical and, admittedly, extremely successful experiments of obedience were conducted in the occupied territories by the leaders of the infamous Japanese detachment 731, and the same situation with the coercion to the inevitable and necessary graying of comrades in misfortune was played out in 2009 in the horror film Hunger 2009 indie director Stephen Hentges.
The prerequisites for the fact that one day an outwardly calm and cute person will begin to eat his own kind lie exclusively in the crooked space of psychological discourses, and even then not always. For example, for post-Soviet countries, where the poor, emptiness and alcoholism associated with it in their most terrible manifestations are hopelessly common, the so-called “household cannibalism” is characteristic. How many cases were there when, in a drunken frenzy rocking, people with a distinct imprint of a blonde shoe on their brow, killed, dismembered and ate their no less intellectually impoverished drinking companions, not really understanding what they were doing. In most of these incidents, where sometimes there was a kindred cannibalism (brother ate a sister or brother, son – mother, etc.), it was the result primarily of the moral degeneration of such people, for whom the concepts of norms and laws have long been devoid of their essentiality, although not always the reason for this is only the insignificance of their existence at the bottom of the faceted glass. The cases of David Viens, Catherine Knight and Clara Moerova are characterized by the absence as such of their self-destruction before an act of bloodthirsty violence took place; here purely domestic and irrational cannibalism ceases to be the prerogative of dysfunctional individuals like Sucletin.
The everyday element of the incident hardly shades the second cause of cannibalism in modern conditions, when it is caused by certain psychotraumatic factors, under the influence of which an ordinary maniac with strange eating habits is cultivated. Dzhurmongaliev, who survived a stressful experience and hated the female sex, Chikatilo, before whose eyes his brother, the Spesivtsev family, was eaten, the cause of whose cannibalism lies in the general family nature of psychopathy and schizophrenia, Jeffrey Dahmer with his mass of perversions, was eaten. And a separate line Austrian Armin Mayves, whose biography is typical for a great many maniacs (bad upbringing, the element of incest, psychological isolation and a whole catechism of complexes and phobias not discovered and not cured in time), but his cannibal novel looks like something more than a collage of household and psychotrauma-induced human eating, since his victim, Jurgen Brands, himself wanted to be eaten. Mutual pathology, caused including elementary satiety.
Dedicated to this horrific event, 2005’s Cannibal is seen at first only as a sophisticated reenactment of the memorable events that shook Europe in 2001. Becoming the debut feature-length work in the big cinema for the German director Marian Dora Botulino or simply Marian Dora, not so much inheriting the cinematic traditions of Jörg Buttgerright and Pierre Paolo Pasolini, as forging its authentic syllable, Cannibal is nevertheless not just an extreme horror film, where without shadows of censorship, embarrassment and doubt, the Serious truth of hoc est quod is demonstrated, what it is like to be sat down and those who eat. Setting aside all the husks of anthropological references, Marian Dora creates an extremely frank existential reflection on the ordinary craving for death expressed by both Maiwes and his lover almost from a young age. Film-language ascetic, figuratively lapidary, at the level of total hyperrealism, "Cannibal", introducing the audience to Armin Mayves, tortures them with the icy water of silence. And this cold detachment of its silence is shocking with its dull routine at the moment when everything is already predetermined. We just watch how long already scouring in search of a suitable victim Armin finds the desired, offering as a first course undisguised sex, bare wires of feelings, when a maniac thirsty for flesh and whip Meiwes enters into a sexual relationship with his future half-finished product, in many ways to better understand who is this notorious Jurgen. Before baptism with blood and oil, sperm will be baptized.
In 2001, Germany and the world were shocked by the story of programmer Armin Meiwes, who killed and subsequently ate his sexual partner Bernd Jürgen Brandes, whom he met through the Internet. Everything happened with the consent of the second party, which added to the gloom of this nightmare story.
The cinema was not far from this case and in 2006 there were two absolutely opposite film adaptations of these events. In the film “Cannibal from Rothenburg” directed by Martin Wise, the hand of censorship was felt in showing what happened, but the picture of the hitherto not very famous German director Marian Dore “Cannibal” for an untrained viewer can become a real cultural and physiological shock, because in it the days of the nightmarish existence of the cannibal-homosexual Armin and his lover and voluntary victim Victor are reproduced, why the genre definition of the picture as a criminal-dramatic thriller seems mistaken, because this ambiguous tape can be interpreted in detail and even by a good-looking choralist in the real life of Mary, who is not normally observed by the filmmaker. Thus, the film in a harsh form exposes the duality of human nature and human perversion, stemming from the childhood of most famous maniacs.
The film seeks generalization, creating from a purely private criminal case a picture of the devaluation of a person and turning him into a monster.
Actors Karsten Frank (Armin) and Victor Brandl (Bernd) bravely and unforgettablely played their heroes, literally getting used to their dark natures.
A considerable share of infernal and extreme horror is created in the film by the soundtrack, saturated with oppressive and terribly depressive overflows.
I won’t recommend this film, but if you’re looking for something shocking and beyond, this German underground film is perfect for you. Children under 18 and people who are mentally unstable from watching the film by Marianne Dore better refuse.
8 out of 10