Breathing (Atmen) by Karl Markovics

Austria (2011) - Directors’ Fortnight

A young guy is sitting next to his mother, able to talk to her for the first time in around nineteen years, because she gave him away to an orphanage when he was still a baby. The topic of their discussion is smoking cigarettes. The mother mentions that she used to smoke a lot, but didn’t smoke when she was pregnant with him. “Good Girl” and a bored expression is what she gets for an answer.

Scenes like this, which could make one cry and laugh at the same time, make Breathing (Atmen) by Austrian director Karl Markovics an extraordinary movie, that represents the mood of Vienna perfectly. Without trying to show the city in a glorified way, the film gives the audience a sense of the country’s famous black humour. Characters that pass you by in this city every day are captured in a way that even Austrian cinema has seldom portrayed so authentically.

Yet Breathing isn’t a picture for an Austrian audience only. Featuring a strong, emotional story with a central performance from an impressively naturalistic young amateur actor, Karl Markovics, usually known for his own acting work, manages to put his beautifully-shot debut movie on a level with the best Austrian movies of recent years - and with this year’s highlights of the Cannes Film Festival.

By Lukas Traber (Austria)