Afternoon

The first shot is a static image: a view from the stage of a theatre onto the auditorium. In the foreground – and on the stage – lies a dog. A woman named Irene (Angela Schanelec), approaches it, pets it. This seems to be a rehearsal, a few people occupy seats in the auditorium, they are somewhat restless. It remains unclear whether the events being presented to us are indeed part of a rehearsal, or whether, assuming a rehearsal is indeed underway, they are merely occurring along its margins. Angela Schanelec's film "Afternoon" never returns to this initial image, never returns to the theatre. Only later will a figure from the same scene - the one involving the woman and the dog - describe it as something she saw in the theatre. The film quits the theatre for good, and all subsequent events transpire either at a lakeside villa in Potsdam or in the streets of Berlin. And yet it becomes evident at the latest during the credits that this first scene has established a space of play that is derived from the theatre. "Afternoon" is an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" - albeit a free one.