u/MiniaturePhilosopher

My rating: 4.5/5 (arbitrarily taking off half a star because it wrecked me)

Country: Austria (watched with English subtitles)

Director: Gerald Kargl (doesn’t seem to have directed any other feature length films)

Does anything bad happen to the dog: >!no!<

This has been sitting on my Letterboxd watchlist for ages, and I probably originally found it on someone else’s horror list. “Fear” and “Schizophrenia” are alternative titles, though it doesn’t seem to touch on schizophrenia.

This is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, and I never want to ever watch it again. Despite having about as much gore and violence as any typical horror movie - and horror being one of my favorite genres - Angst has been sitting heavily and uneasily in my stomach for the last couple of hours. I’ve taken Tums, a hot shower, and a nap since finishing it.

The tagline says “Based on a True Story”. And the story is fairly simply. A man is released from prison after stabbing a random woman, and then immediately breaks into a house to kill again. This should be a fairly standard entry in the home invasion genre, even with its heavy heaping of European bleakness. But there are two (spoiler-free) things that really elevate Angst and set it apart, along with making it so effective.

One: the camera. The camera is completely dynamic, and smoothly twists and turns to stay with the action and focus. It’s like a living thing and another character, and doesn’t give you any real breathing room. The audience is only allowed a few moments of distance throughout the whole movie.

Two: the narration. The main character narrates through the entire runtime (as a voiceover). You get his thoughts, his reasoning, his past, his motivations delivered cooly and almost dispassionately in nearly every moment. There’s incredibly little dialogue in the movie otherwise. But being in his head doesn’t make you feel remotely sympathetic to him, and there’s a distinct disconnect in how he perceives himself and reality. He sees himself as cool, collected, cunning, clear-headed and mostly in control - and we get to see the full picture. Sitting with his perspective for about eighty minutes is deeply uncomfortable and probably where most of this grimy afterfeel comes from. Usually in media, if you have someone’s point of view it means that you’re supposed to sympathize with them on some level - but that’s impossible here and the tension of that expectation being upended is almost unbearable.

I’m not sure if I actually recommend this movie or not. It’s masterful, beautifully shot and acted, and engaging. It’s not not funny. There is a vein of pitch black humor running through it, and it’d be a much meaner movie without it. Generally speaking, if you like the original Funny Games or The Vanishing, you’d probably like Angst. Watch it if you like feeling bad or want to see probably the best home invasion film.

With Lil Nas X’s rehab, recovery, and bipolar diagnosis currently in the spotlight, I wanted to share his incredible 2021 cover of Dolly Parton’s Jolene. I love how haunting and plaintive this version is. He’s such a major talent and I can’t wait to see what he comes out with next.

Live performance in BBC’s Radio 1 Live Lounge, September 2021.