Afternoon - Wellington Film Society

Afternoon [Nachmittag]
Angela Schanelec | Germany | 2007 | M

A free and original take on Anton Chekov’s “The Seagull”, transposed to the here and now. Theatre actress Irene goes to her house by a lake near Berlin, home to her older brother Alex and her son Konstantin. Summer, sunshine, bathing in the lake - outwardly, an idyllic scene. However, the characters are cut off in their own little worlds and the scenes of day-to-day life are shrouded in fatigue, grief and lost love. “Three days in summer, the demise of a family, of which only a remnant remains” – Goethe-Institut

"Schanelec's film is concerned with both qualities of light and with passages, moments of transition liminality… After an opening shot which is singularly incongruous with the rest of the film, Schanelec moves the (in)action to a lakeside family cottage where Alex (Fritz Schediwy), the de facto patriarch of the clan, is slowly wasting away from chronic illness. He is tended by his 22 year old nephew Konstantin (Jirka Zett), who has assumed this role out of a combination of unavoidable duty, no better options, and a desire to thumb his nose at his mother Irene (Schanelec), an actress who, according to the other members of the family, has always been cold and distant…" – Michael Sicinski

Screened in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut.