Sarah spielt einen Werwolf (2017)

Sarah spielt einen Werwolf: Directed by Katharina Wyss. With Loane Balthasar, Michel Voïta, Manuela Biedermann, Annina Walt. On the stage of her high school drama class 17-year-old Sarah gives it all. When she performs, there is an instant of suspense in which she appears to transform completely into her character. But what lies behind Sarah’s radical stage presence? A dark secret she is trying to express, a claustrophobic family environment, the longing for a boyfriend, a friend, someone she can confide in. The more Sarah expresses this desire, the more she ends up alienating the people willing to get close to her. The downfall of an outsider and her incessant struggle to escape solitude.

“Like Josephine Deckeru0026#39;s recent u0026quot;Madelineu0026#39;s Madelineu0026quot;, Katharina Wyssu0026#39;s debut u0026quot;Sarah Plays a Werewolfu0026quot; is also about a teenage girl who really only discovers herself when being someone else and although set around a theatre class, Wyssu0026#39; film isnu0026#39;t so much about the process of acting as it is about getting inside the skulls of its characters and in particular inside the troubled mind of Sarah, (a terrific Loane Balthasar). The title might suggest a piece of schlock-horror but you can tell quite early on that this is going to be a much darker, psychological piece, itu0026#39;s violence very subtly applied as it slips only occasionally into fantasy.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhere Deckeru0026#39;s film smacked of u0026#39;The Methodu0026#39; this Swiss movie feels much more radically u0026#39;realistu0026#39; while the brilliance and depth of Balthasaru0026#39;s performance is alarmingly not like u0026#39;actingu0026#39; at all. This is a rigorous, very European film and it gives us a very different picture of teenage angst than we are used to seeing in American or even British cinema. In the end, it is a horror film and one that will certainly evoke u0026quot;Carrieu0026quot; but without the bloodletting and flying daggers. The horrors Sarah experiences are the horrors of being a lonely, if very talented, child with too much imagination and too much time to sit and brood in her insular, almost incestuous, family and unlike DePalmau0026#39;s u0026quot;Carrieu0026quot; this Sarah really will chill you to the bone.”