This film by German director Hans Christian Schmid is all driven by character. The story is about a young woman named Michaela who has epileptic attacks and thinks that she might be possessed by the devil. Michaelas family sphere is very catholic and she is very religious herself. Schmid catches the atmosphere of the 70s in Bavaria extraordinary well, maybe due to the fact that he grew up in a small catholic town himself. "Requiem" is full of love for its characters, even for those, who seem not to deserve this love at first. Schmid never chooses the easy way, he knows that there are more sides to every character and every story. Someone else would have made a film that only blames religion, but this film doesn't make fun of the religious nature of their characters. Besides all of this, Schmid creates moments of absolute beauty and joy, and this is what makes "Requiem" a really great piece of cinema. And if you have someone like Sandra Hüller playing the lead, what you get is one of the best German films of the past years.