Cast

Erich R. Finsches, Marie Kern, M.C. Kreindl, Hubert Fabian Kulterer, Barbara Paukner, Peter Reiser, René Rupnik

awards

Austrian Award for Public Education 1996

Film description

Art lovers are a sundry group. Seidl’s camera follows art gallery visitors as they share their impressions. Individual works of art, it seems, can have diametrically opposite meanings depending on whom you ask. An abstract urban landscape – whose symbolism enraptures art historians and curators – is utterly lost on an elderly couple who only see in it monkeys, birds, and nonsensical scribbles, while a critic perceives in the same piece an undeniable metaphor of male potency. Their contrasting testimonials show that attempts to define abstraction are doomed to fail. Seidl takes an obvious pleasure in deflating intellectual pedantry, but he goes further, into the homes of some of the protagonists, exposing the contrasts between their daily life and the pose they strike in the art world, sometimes with comedic effect. Further still, Seidl asks: is the meaning of art in everyday life to reflect social reality or provide a way to escape it?

Prepared by: Anna Tatarska

Information about director

Ulrich Seidl

Multiple-award winning director, screenwriter, and producer Ulrich Seidl was born in Vienna, Austria in 1952. The graphics on his website flash descriptive adjectives: voyeur, misanthrope, cynic, social pornographer, blackguard, provocateur, pessimist, humanist. And although this is more Seidl’s ironic take on his media reputation rather than it is a declaration of artistic identity, there is no question that Seidl has been eliciting controversy since the very beginnings of his 30-year career. One reason is that he simply refuses to stay within genre formulas, especially when it comes to the boundaries between documentary and fiction, which is why his work has sometimes been called scripted reality. Those who prefer their cinematography clearly labeled and defined have been left both confounded and irritated. What’s more, Seidl most often works with amateur actors and does his filming on locations rather than sets. The director, who has been compared with Fassbinder, Herzog and Pasolini, describes his own work as the polar opposite of wedding photography – his goal is to capture what is least esthetic, most shameful, and acutely painful. But, though his perspective might seem harsh at first, what ultimately comes through his carefully composed imagery is a deeply human approach to all the people and characters he chooses to portray.

Filmpography

1980 Metr czterdzieści / Einsvierzig / One Forty (doc., short)

1982 Bal / Der Ball / The Prom (short)

1984 Look 84 (short)

1990 Good News: o roznosicielach gazet, martwych psach i innych wiedeńczykach / Good News: Von Kolporteuren, toten Hunden und anderen Wienern / Good News: Newspaper Salesmen, Dead Dogs and Other People from Wienna (doc.)

1992 Spodziewane straty / Mit Verlust ist zu rechnen / Losses to Be Expected (doc.)

1994 Ostatni prawdziwi mężczyźni / Die letzten Männer / The Last Real Men (TV, doc.)

1995 Obrazy na wystawie / Bilder einer Ausstellung / Pictures at an Exhibition (TV, doc.)

1995 Zwierzęca miłość / Tierische Liebe / Animal Love (doc.)

1997 Miłośnik biustów / Der Busenfreund / The Bosom Friend (TV, doc.)

1998 Zabawa bez granic / Spass ohne Grenzen / Fun without Limits (TV, doc.)

1998 Modelki / Models

2001 Upały / Hundstage / Dog Days

2002 Stan narodu / Zur Lage / State of the Nation (doc.)

2003 Jezu, Ty wiesz / Jesus, Du weisst / Jesus, You Know (doc.)

2006 Bracia, weselmy się / Brüder, laßt uns lustig sein / Brothers, Let Us Be Merry (segment in The Mozart Minute)

2007 Import/Export

2012 Paradies: Liebe

Prepared by: Anna Tatarska

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