Angst finally hit blu-ray today. Read our review. Don't be scared of a little blood.
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| "How's that for garlic breath?" |
is the best serial
killer film you’ve neither heard of but now will finally have the chance to see
thanks to Cult Epics’ newly released blu-ray edition.
Telling the story of a nameless psychopath
(brilliantly and fearless portrayed by Erwin Leder) recently freed from prison
for murdering an elderly woman only to pick up where he left off immediately
upon release, Angst is both a cool
and distant God’s Eye view as well as an uncomfortably up, close and personal
look at a serial murderer. Less
interested in analyzing the killer’s motives than observing his behavior from a
fish eye lens, Angst is berserk and manically
stylized in its attempt to bring viewers inside the point of view of the
psychopath. Loosely based on the real
murder spree of Werner Kniesek with voice over narration quoting actual
confessions from serial killers like Peter Kürten, Angst plays out in real time as the film’s serial killer clumsily
attempts a first murder before hesitantly breaking and entering an elderly
family’s home. Far more realistic for
depicting a mass murderer sloppy at his craft of bloodletting, Angst is often compared to the equally
disturbing and uncompromising Henry:
Portrait of a Serial Killer.
What’s
immediately striking about Angst is
the impossible camerawork which Noe clearly studied closely before reshaping it
into his own visual language. Opening
with a crane shot slowly gliding down the tower of a prison towards the main
exit our antihero will depart, modern viewers will see Irreversible achieved without the aid of CGI enhancement or
invisible editing. When the film isn’t
showing off some of the most innovative crane shots ever created for a film,
our skewed sociopathic perspective through the killer’s eyes is furthered by
the use of the Snorricam, freezing the killer in the center of a shot as the
background moves around behind him. Then
there’s the floating camera following the killer as he runs through an open
forest in pursuit of his first potential victim, the camera swaying to and
from, moving in and out, from diagonals to strafing. The effect could only have been achieved by
the use of helium balloons or by a genuinely skilled cinematographer. Either way, it’s utterly jaw dropping to
see. Adding to the feeling of sickness is
the desaturated cool blue tint, giving the proceedings an icy detachment which
only amplifies our discomfort. It goes
without saying acting across the board, from the victims to our deeply
disturbed antihero, is excellent and fearlessly played. Some of the unspeakable acts the killer
commits onscreen must have taken real gall to perform, and the impact of the
performances is remarkably authentic and effective.
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| "This hallway is nowhere near as scary as seeing me naked. Wanna look?" |
Score
-Andrew Kotwicki
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