Box Office Top 5
Read the New York Times Review »
By NICOLAS RAPOLD
For a teenager stuck in a juvenile detention center, diverted by swimming and subjected to strip searches, 19-year-old Roman does not exactly choose a low-impact job for his work-release program. We first see him freaking out at a welding task in the opening scene, and the reaction of his parole officer shows that Roman has willingly botched previous attempts at gainful employment. After all that, the sulky boy — as a ward of the state from an early age, he has a child's blinkered life experience — decides to apprentice at the Vienna city morgue. As played by Thomas Schubert, making his feature-film debut, Roman spends a lot of his time gawking before reluctantly pitching in with the efficient yet respectful practices of a team tasked with moving bodies that have stopped moving. And as directed by the Austrian actor and first-time director Karl Markovics and shot by Martin Gschlacht, "Breathing" is a deceptively self-contained film devoted to observing Roman, and observing alongside Roman, as he engages with the world instead of continuing to embrace exile. — Nicolas Rapold
Read More @ Source More Celeb Stories Here