I don't know if this speaks to the lack of originality in film-making but you can imagine my surprise when I realized I just watched two films with the same setup.
Angst(1983) and
The Eel(1997) both tell the stories of two men released from prison/asylum and what they do afterwards. Both films take different approaches and one I felt worked very well while the other left me wanting.
In Angst the killer is released from jail and the story is practically told in real time. The killer has not been reformed and he immediately looks for victims. While the film has a certain satirical quality it also turns into a nauseous exercise in gore. You can't really talk about the film without going into spoilers but the killer basically finds a family and executes all three members...then he tries to get away. While that might sound like it's not enough for a film I appreciated how the basics of narrative are stripped away it's in essence a one scene film.
And while the idea of doing a film basically just about a murder might seem thin the director puts in a number of tricks to keep you invested in the story. The story is under 90 minutes and I got the sense that things were cut to make the plot move forward and have no drag. The deaths are clumsy and brutal and ugly and you get a great sense of panic post slaughter that feels both real and incredibly cinematic. The camera and score both feel like characters as the lead is mostly silent and we only hear about his life story via voice over(once again something that works).
The Eel received a number of awards when it came out 25 years ago. I had seen the filmmakers other earlier works. His earlier work was definitely salacious and The Eel has elements of a good thrilling story. However for me it was almost like a film in reverse...the first act though I would even call it a prologue has a Hitchcockian quality to it. A man on a train gets a note that his wife is cheating on him...he tells her he's going out fishing he comes back early finds his wife in bed and kills her in a bloody affair.
So I was like okay...the film has my attention and then it just became a chore to get through. The lead is released from prison and he starts a business finds a suicidal girl gets into some conflict but at the end of the day the whole thing was just so dry and it didn't feel like it fit with the superior earlier part of the film. I couldn't find myself investing into any of the new characters because they were so frightfully dull.
I'm actually blown away that this film beat LA Confidential, The Ice Storm, Funny Games, and The Sweet Hereafter to win the P'alme D'or. I doubt I'll remember this film in a month.