Ho Hum

Recently in the basement, I’ve been watching movies that show up on people’s most shocking/disturbing lists lately, hoping to find something challenging. 

Here, alas, is another one that just doesn’t cut it.  Gerald Kargl’s Angst  (1983) is not as interesting as he seems to fancy it is.  It would be better if Kargl had been brave enough to jettison the annoying voiceover narration and just let the visual carry the portrait (a la, say, Polanski’s Repulsion).  The narration is dull and intrusive, and the movie quickly becomes overly talky although it has virtually no dialogue.  If you can’t trust your audience to “get it,” then why make the movie?   The silly yapping does little to illuminate the character and fails to give us any “deep” appreciation of his motives. 
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Even worse, the pacing sucks.  For such a short movie (86 minutes) it has a lot of what feels like filler, and I was left feeling this was a thirty-minute short dressed  in a ridiculous full-movie costume.  Crane shots like bad music videos.  Lots of extended sequences of running and walking.   Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay  too much dragging around of already dead bodies, step by fucking annoying, drawn-out, tiresome step.  In the end, it is saddled with a “shocking climax” that does not shock and is hardly climactic.  There are some legitimately unnerving moments, and  Erwin Leder’s performance is strong, but these are not nearly enough to carry the whole.   

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