Der Traumhafte Weg (2016)

Der Traumhafte Weg: Directed by Angela Schanelec. With Miriam Jakob, Thorbjörn Björnsson, Maren Eggert, Phil Hayes. A young German couple find their relationship tested after his mother suffers an accident. Thirty years later, a middle-aged actress splits with her anthropologist husband. Soon, these two couples’ paths cross in unexpected ways.

“In the cinema of Angela Schanelec you cannot take your eyes off the screen for a second for fear of missing a vital piece of information. Schanelec doesnu0026#39;t make films that follow a logistical narrative path but rather she drip-feeds us a narrative that we must make sense of. There is sometimes a formal structure but often itu0026#39;s as if we have joined the characters in the middle of a conventional film rather than at the beginning and we leave them before the end as though her characters will live on after the film is over…or not; if a characteru0026#39;s life is to come to an end it will happen off-screen. Either way, we the audience, will not be around to see what happens next. Of course, what happens u0026#39;in-betweenu0026#39; wll most likely bore an audience seeking excitement or even something straightforward but if you are prepared to give yourself over to her style of film-making you may find yourself entranced.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFamilies are often at the heart of her films; particularly the dynamics between parents and children. Her latest film, u0026quot;The Dreamed Pathu0026quot; begins with a couple meeting and seemingly striking up a relationship of sorts before swiftly moving on to embrace the boyu0026#39;s relationship with his ill mother and surly, blind father. The characters speak metronomically as if not quite in the same world that the rest of us inhabit or, as the title suggests, in a dream while u0026#39;storiesu0026#39; that appear to be developing lead nowhere. This is difficult, even challenging, cinema, in which even the passing of time is subverted with past and present intermingingly and characters finding themselves in places they ought not to be in, again as in a dream, (for once any synopsis handed out with the film is very welcome).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn the past I sometimes felt as if I were intruding on the privacy of Schanelecu0026#39;s characters but in u0026quot;The Dreamed Pathu0026quot; they seem so cut off from reality that really isnu0026#39;t a consideration. It also may mean that this is her least accessible work and her least involving film. That said, it is also so much better than almost anything else you are likely to see this year; it simply shouldnu0026#39;t be missed.”