Angela Schanelec

’ve lost count, but I think I’ve seen Angela Schanelec’s (2016) probably half a dozen times since first watching it at TIFF in 2016. I saw it twice in that same week at the festival, as after the first viewing I immediately knew I had to see it again. Perhaps I initially wasn’t just a dream. To me, it was immediately clear that it was a masterpiece, which is a term I seldom use. I also find best-of-the-decade lists frustrating; I don’t think I could contribute a best-of-the-decade or best-of-the-year list. But I know that this film is deeply important to me, and that it resonated for me in ways that I did not know a film could resonate. As I watch it again and again, it’s no longer to decode it. The film is very clear, precise, and stripped down to the essential; there’s nothing to decode. “Behind the bare phenomenal facts there is nothing” (William James).