Even the title of David Balda’s Czech-German-Italian co-production reveals that it’s all about “manipulation”. But that doesn’t just apply to the film, in which a mysterious but super-powerful secret society and a secret church order try to influence each other. Anyone who goes to the cinema will probably feel manipulated because they have wasted their life on this simple, amateur-level and extremely chatty thriller drama.
There are exciting ingredients there: secret societies! Churches! Conspiracies! Mighty old men! One immediately thinks of best-selling author Dan Brown, the equally popular and controversial source for blockbusters such as “The Da Vinci Code – Sacrilege” and “Inferno”. But whatever you think of the books and their film adaptations: after half an hour of “Manipulation” at the latest, you’ll be longing for the Tom Hanks vehicles. Because nothing is fun here anymore!
The German star Heino Ferch is also part of “Manipulation”.
The focus is on Matteo, played by Radoslav Gavlas in an extremely colorless and expressionless manner. The young man has been a member of a powerful secret society since his childhood. After his initiation ritual, he is promoted and given the task of making contact with Father Vitus (Heino Ferch on autopilot), who is extremely important to society. But when he witnesses the evil machinations of those he had previously confided in, he begins to question the previous circumstances – additionally stimulated by conversations with Anna (Anna Ctvrtnickova).
While studying in Bologna, Matteo also meets a university professor (Pavel Kriz), who enlightens him further about cults and other associations. Then he realizes that he has to do something. Anna’s father Juraj (Féodor Atkine) is – just like Vitus – a member of a covert church order that is enemies of the secret society. He finally persuades Matteo to pass on his insider knowledge to the journalist Ivan (Arnaud Binard). But this puts Matteo in great danger.
Learned nothing
As part of the promotion of “Manipulation”, it is always pointed out how young director David Balda, who was born in 2000, is. In 2019 he was even the youngest director in the world to release a film in cinemas. What is overlooked is that Balda’s debut “Narusitel” was received anything but positively. Critics criticize, among other things, complete technical incompetence, platitude and endless pointless dialogues. His second feature film only shows a single development. All of these shortcomings are now rolled out to 128 minutes instead of the previous 85 minutes.
The filmmaker’s inspiration for “Manipulation” came from research into churches and secret organizations during the corona pandemic. Balda also stated that he noticed that his generation in particular often struggles to find out what is true and that young people are easier to manipulate. But it is precisely with this background that one can ask the question why the resulting thriller drama does not anchor these themes in our everyday world.
“Manipulation” never offers exciting images.
Instead, it’s about a secret society where you never understand what it actually wants and how it affects society. The latter practically does not exist. It’s always about some inner circle of the opponents, but despite the endless chatter, you learn almost nothing about them. Life on the street is also ignored in the film. “Manipulation” largely consists of bland, almost monochrome shots of anonymous rooms in which older and very old people sit and plot some kind of scheme with a dark, worried or expressionless expression.
What kind of people are they actually? Politician? Stock broker? Scientist? Ikea salesman? Balda has little interest in his characters. The head of the secret society, known only as “Master,” sits the whole time in his office in front of red velvet curtains, looks sinister and gives some kind of instructions. He and his subordinates are evil, the men of the church are the good ones – that has to be enough characterization. Okay, at the end there is a clumsy “twist” in this regard, but it is just as unsuccessful as the sometimes amateurish production, riddled with numerous errors, or the sometimes miserably poor dubbing of some of the participants in the original English version
Conclusion: “Manipulation” is a total disaster. Whether you look at the script, the implementation or the main actor – it’s all completely subterranean.