Famously and very controversially, Hannah Arendt wrote of the "banality of evil." Banal maybe, but who would have thought that evil could be so stupefyingly boring?
Anyone doubtful of the capacity of evil to evoke ennui might test his skepticism with a viewing of "The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick" (at his or her own risk, of course, of thoroughly wasting time).
The hero of our film is named Joseph Bloch, the goalkeeper on a professional soccer team playing a game in Vienna. We are first introduced to Bloch's utter disengagement from life, which seems to be the theme of the movie, during an opening scene on the soccer pitch. When the action is at the opponent's end, Bloch does not even bother to watch, instead wandering distractedly around and behind his net. When the other team attacks, Bloch makes no effort to stop a shot he believes has been made in violation of a rule. The referee is of a different opinion, and when Bloch pursues the official in aggressive protest, he is ejected from the game.
Bloch is then seen wandering aimlessly around town during the course of which he sequentially picks up two women. The viewer may wonder at his success, since he is not especially good looking and exhibits, to say the least, a minimum of charm. The first encounter passes without unexpected incident but, after spending the night with the second woman, he casually and without emotion or any apparent motive strangles her, after she seems to suggest some very mild sadomasochistic play.
And that's about it, folks. The rest of the movie simply follows Bloch over the next few days as he continues his aimless wandering, gets beaten up by a few thugs after needlessly provoking them, and visits an old girlfriend who owns an inn in a nearby town. At no point during these doings, if they may be called that, does he exhibit any emotion about the murder he has committed or any anxiety about being caught, even when he sees a newspaper sketch of the suspected perpetrator who looks remarkably like him.
The movie ends when Bloch wanders into what appears to be a soccer game between two youth teams and engages in a brief conversation with a travelling salesman seated next to him. A penalty is called, and Bloch takes the occasion to explain to his companion the mental duel between the goalie and the kicker, as they try to psych each other out as to where the kick will be aimed. If this disquisition was intended to convey some philosophical point, or to impart meaning to what has gone before in the movie, it escaped me.
Leaving the spontaneous and offhand commission of murder aside, nothing much happens in "The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick." The only thing that kept me watching was my concern about missing something that might shed some explanatory light on this bizarre piece of film-making. That never came, and I felt a mighty sense of relief when the final credits began to roll.
Read less.
Anyone doubtful of the capacity of evil to evoke ennui might test his skepticism with a viewing of "The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick" (at his or her own risk, of course, of thoroughly wasting time).
The hero of our film is named Joseph Bloch, the goalkeeper on a professional soccer team playing a game in Vienna. We are first introduced to Bloch's utter disengagement from life, which seems to be the theme of the movie, during an opening scene on the soccer pitch. When the action is at the opponent's end, Bloch does not even bother to watch, instead wandering distractedly around and behind his net. When the other team attacks, Bloch makes no effort to stop a shot he believes has been made in violation of a rule. The referee is of a different opinion, and when Bloch pursues the official in aggressive protest, he is ejected from the game.
Bloch is then seen wandering aimlessly around town during the course of which he sequentially picks up two women. The viewer may wonder at his success, since he is not especially good looking and exhibits, to say the least, a minimum of charm. The first encounter passes without unexpected incident but, after spending the night with the second woman, he casually and without emotion or any apparent motive strangles her, after she seems to suggest some very mild sadomasochistic play.
And that's about it, folks. The rest of the movie simply follows Bloch over the next few days as he continues his aimless wandering, gets beaten up by a few thugs after needlessly provoking them, and visits an old girlfriend who owns an inn in a nearby town. At no point during these doings, if they may be called that, does he exhibit any emotion about the murder he has committed or any anxiety about being caught, even when he sees a newspaper sketch of the suspected perpetrator who looks remarkably like him.
The movie ends when Bloch wanders into what appears to be a soccer game between two youth teams and engages in a brief conversation with a travelling salesman seated next to him. A penalty is called, and Bloch takes the occasion to explain to his companion the mental duel between the goalie and the kicker, as they try to psych each other out as to where the kick will be aimed. If this disquisition was intended to convey some philosophical point, or to impart meaning to what has gone before in the movie, it escaped me.
Leaving the spontaneous and offhand commission of murder aside, nothing much happens in "The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick." The only thing that kept me watching was my concern about missing something that might shed some explanatory light on this bizarre piece of film-making. That never came, and I felt a mighty sense of relief when the final credits began to roll.
Read less.