3096 Jours

Once you get past the awful acting, it's a good movie. Quite harrowing too when you remember it's a true story.

This true story that many have heard of in the news is realistically brought to the screen in this well made and shocking movie.

A 10 year old Austrian girl is kidnapped for 8 years and kept imprisoned in a small basement room for much of the time.

The actress Antonia Campbell Hughes looks frighteningly thin. The real person was kept on an almost starvation diet for years. The Danish actor who plays the kidnapper is good too - he doesn't act too obviously crazy.

It's unimaginable that she survived but the thing that makes watching the painful story bearable is to know she escaped.

I came to this movie having read Natascha Kampusch's book of the same name, and watched a documentary about the case.

In it's favour the events depicted in the film are pretty accurate to how they were described in the book. Wolfgang Přiklopil's house and the cell he built are close to how they really were.

But is authenticity enough to make this a good movie? Well, not really.

The film feels very flat, there is very little sense of tension or drama, it's just a plodding retelling of the events.

Thure Lindhardt and Antonia Campbell-Hughes are fine in the roles of Přiklopil and Kampusch. However, some of the other actors are less successful, and it seems as though some of their voices have been re- dubbed?

The main problem with the film is its lack of insight. The film barely explored Kampusch's inner thoughts during the experience, the coping strategies that allowed her to endure the ordeal. And what of Přiklopil? We know nothing really about him, what drove him to do what he did? What happened to him to make him the way he was?

The relationship that developed between Kampusch and Přiklopil was complex. She never lost sight that a crime was being committed and that she had to escape, but she also came to sympathise with him, seeing him as a damaged human being.

Some have said this story shouldn't have been filmed. I don't agree - but I do think it needed to be handled in a different way. Kampusch's story is an extraordinary one, and it really deserved a film that could do it justice.

If you want the full story of what happened, read the book instead.

Repetitive? Yes, definately! Because being kidnapped for 3096 days is something repetitive. If you expect Hollywood dramatizations, no, this is not that film. This film looks very simple at the surface, but deep inside holds very good character development and feelings. Acting is superior, the small actress as Natasha surprises with her performance. Older Natasha is also acted very well. But the real star is the director, creating a simple bir very impressive movie.

Some of the reviews for this film reveal the "blame the victim" mentality held by society towards victims of sex crimes. The hints of blaming the victims echo the usual excuses, that these victims in some way got what they "deserve" for not apparently fighting back, for "letting it happen", and on and on. These rationalizations are some of the worst blows to the victims and conversely one of the greatest supports of the perpetrators.

It is necessary for films like this to be made so the myths and lies of sex slavery are viewed for what the reality is: torture, plain and simple. In one of her newspaper interviews after the film was made, Ms. Kampusch stated that the reality was far worse than the film depicted, so this glimpse into the world of sex slavery was watered down considerably.

I also was glad that there were hints of mysterious behavior from other characters involved in the story who may or may not have been involved in what the Austrian police later publicly claimed may have been the machinations of a pedophile ring, which may have helped this perpetrator abduct and psychologically torture the victim. Too bad this statement from the Austrian police was not included in the film.