3096 Days Full Movie
Eui Grey
The tabloid-sounding quote on the cover is misleading. This is a serious and thoughtful book, by a young woman who was kidnapped by a stranger at the age of 10, and remained his captive for the next eight years.
It is very disturbing to read. At times I found the claustrophobia hard to bear, even at second hand. For the first six months Kampsuch was confined in a small hidden underground room, which could only be accessed through three doors, the last one made of concrete, which were so elaborately locked and concealed that it took her kidnapper, Wolfgang Priklopil, an hour to get through them all each time he came to visit her, and an hour again to seal it all up again when he left. At weekends, when Priklopil had his mother to stay, Kampsuch was down there alone for three days at a stretch. One of her fears was that he would have an accident and never return for her.
What is striking about the book (apart, of course, from the story itself) is the firm, clear, individual voice in which it is written. Kampusch refuses to view Priklopil simply as a monster, or herself as a helpless victim, whatever the pressure from the media and society to do so:
She says that her refusal to reduce this story to thriller-like categories of black and white, but to insist on shades of grey, has led to her being criticised and subjected to abuse on the internet. But she is absolutely firm on it. In particular she angrily rejects the idea that her ability to see Priklopil as not all bad, is a symption of the Stockholm Syndrome. She hates this label, which she says victimises her all over again, and she insists that her behaviour was essentially rational. Priklopil was the only human being she had contact with for eight years, and she made of that the best that she could.
Like a horrifying number of Austrian girls in the 1990s, Kampusch was snatched right off the street. For the next 3,096 days, she was held captive by a man named Wolfgang Přiklopil, doing what she needed to appease his madness and survive.
Born on February 17, 1988, in Vienna, Austria, Natascha Maria Kampusch grew up in the public housing projects on the outskirts of the city. Her neighborhood was littered with alcoholics and embittered adults, like her divorced parents.
Since her escape, Natascha Kampusch has transformed her trauma into three successful books. The first, titled 3096 Days, described her capture and confinement; the second, her recovery. 3096 Days was subsequently turned into a movie in 2013.
The film "3,096 Days" opens with a banal spat between a mother and her daughter. Ten-year-old Natascha slams the door behind her and walks to school. Her mother goes to the balcony to call down to her with a reconciliatory word, but Natascha is already gone.
It wasn't an act of spontaneity. Priklopil, an unemployed communication engineer, had been planning the abduction. In his house in a suburb of Vienna, he'd already built a two-by-three-meter (roughly 6-by-10-foot) enclosure in the basement to keep his prey - presumably forever.
The police searched for Natascha for weeks. Two officers even visited Priklopil's house, because his white truck matched the vehicle they were looking for. But it was a common model and the police moved on - even though Priklopil didn't have an alibi for the time of the kidnapping.
What began on March 2, 1998 near Vienna became one of the most spectacular abduction cases worldwide - and was bound to show up on the silver screen. However, it wasn't an Austrian producer, but German filmmakers Bernd Eichinger and Martin Moszkowicz who bought the rights to the story. Eichinger convinced director Sherry Hormann ("Desert Flower") to take on the harrowing project.
"A number of actors rejected the part of Wolfgang Priklopil without even looking at the screenplay," remembered Hormann. "If you don't have a problem playing Nazis, serial killers or pederasts, then why not someone like Wolfgang Priklopil?"
The filmmaker finally found a stellar cast in Great Britain and Denmark. English actress Amelia Pidgeon as the young Natascha and Antonia Campbell-Hughes as her older counterpart shine with a combination of strong will, fragility and adaptability.
For Campbell-Hughes, "3,096 Days" was a unique challenge: "I saw someone who managed to survive with a strong will and sense of courage. Sometimes I was pretty depressed and struggled with my feelings, because everything was so complex."
Danish actor Thure Lindhardt portrays Wolfgang Priklopil not as someone who is insane, but who suffers from borderline personality disorder and who commits acts of violence and humiliation in many different variations.
"He had a very possessive mother and was not a normal person," said the actor. "For me, the story is not just about power, but also about love - especially the absence of love. People who don't receive love can start abusing their power to get it."
The film was made in English and then dubbed for German cinemas. Much of it takes place, of course, in a very small space, but Hormann managed to give the potentially claustrophobic scenes in the basement a large degree of psychological depth.
In her cage, Natascha manages to develop survival strategies and even does things like play school. She lays dresses over two chairs to represents other students and "teaches" them. She puts on a mock talk show where she explains how she managed to escape her abductor, and asks Priklopil whether he is lonely "up there" in the house.
Natascha creates distance between herself and the traumas she experiences - even though she is shoved back into reality again and again. "3,096 Days" is a drama through and through. But when the two celebrate Christmas or birthdays together and Priklopil captures on video how Natascha opens her gifts or helps out with the renovation of the roof, the film takes on a surreal element.
Now 26 years old, Natascha Kampusch has spoken about her experiences in interviews and even hosted a talk show for a short time. Together with authors Heike Gronemeier and Corinna Milborn, in 2010 she published her autobiography, "3,096 Days in Captivity," which served as the basis for Hormann's film. The first screenplay was drafted by Eichinger, but finished by Ruth Thoma after Eichinger died in January 2011.
Kampusch was clear from the beginning that her story could not be retold with complete accuracy, but it was important to her that the film conveyed her feelings. And she said she was satisfied with the result.
"It reminded me of how I approached my captivity," she told film distributor Constantin Film, "How I tried to make by own little home by painting a dresser on the wall, or a door handle or mailbox so that I could feel at home again."
The most impressive scenes created by Hormann and cameraman Michael Ballhaus came with Natascha's first outings. Slow-motion camera techniques capture how she watches people on the street and contemplates how she can call for help. Then Priklopil takes her hand and says, "Don't even think about it."
It was in the restroom at a ski slope that Natascha finally asks someone for help. But the Polish woman didn't understand German. Then, for the first time in 3,096 days, Natascha finally managed to get away from her captor as he was busy washing his truck. Just a few hours later, Wolfgang Priklopil threw himself in front of a train.
Growing up in a deeply troubled family, 15-year-old Anna felt lost and alone in the world. So when a friendly taxi driver befriended her, Anna welcomed the attention, and agreed to go home with him to meet his family. She wouldn't escape for over a decade. Held captive by a sadistic pedophile, Anna was subjected to despicable levels of sexual abuse and torture. The unrelenting violence and degradation resulted in numerous miscarriages, and the birth of four babies.... each one stolen away from Anna at birth.
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On March 2, 1998, 10-year-old Natascha Kampusch was kidnapped and found herself locked in a house that would be her home for the next eight years. She was starved, beaten, treated as a slave, and forced to work for her deranged captor. But she never forgot who she was, and she never gave up hope of returning to the world. This is her story.
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