Straub-Huillet’s adaptation of Heinrich Böll’s biting satire Bonn Diary presents the reflections of a reactivated officer who is summon ed to the West German capital by the Ministry of Defense to establish an Academy for Military Memories. Straub considered his film to be an intervention against German rearmament in the Adenauer era: "Machorka-Muff is the story of a rape, the rape of a country on which an army has been imposed, a country which would have been happier without one."
In "Machorka-Muff," Mr. Straub, employing the cold, somewhat expressionistic but always loquacious approach of his other films, comes closest to underlining the almost subliminal irony of his themes. He briefly outlines, through the performance of Colonel Machorka-Muff, a former Nazi who is reinstated in the Adenauer regime, the unchanging thinking of the Nazi and/or the military mind. As the colonel of the title, Dr. Johannes Eckhardt is properly cold and convincing as the believer in the rights of the soldier. Although it is the shortest and earliest of Mr. Straub's films, it is both the most lucid of his works and the most clearly indicative of his potential as an imaginative filmmaker.
律师艾琳(劳拉·琳妮 Laura Linney 饰)接到一桩官司。一名神父由于用宗教手段——驱魔仪式来治疗女孩艾米莉的重病,因而使得艾米莉耽误了正确的药物治疗时间。法庭上,一场宗教与科学之争展开了。
事件的开端,源于19岁女大学生艾米莉(珍妮弗·卡彭特Jennifer Carpenter饰)的恐怖遭遇。她在大学宿舍睡觉时,感觉有灵异恶魔来侵,接下来更为惊悚的事情陆续发生。艾米莉一反常态,她变得双眼发黑,行为怪异,整日活在犹豫恶魔缠身的梦魇中,艾米莉无法控制自己的意志,痛苦得生不如死。家人为她找来精神病医生,却毫无起色。无奈下,请来神父(汤姆·威尔金森 Tom Wilkinson 饰)一探究竟,才得知艾米莉被远古六恶魔上了身。万魔缠身的她,只有通过宗教仪式进行驱魔,才有可能逃出生天。
神父的驱魔并没有挽救艾米莉,还引来了控告。无神论者却认为,恶魔缠身是无稽之谈。