There are several candidates for the most Ulrich Seidl-like (Seidlan? Seidlesque?) moment in the latest film from the chillingly austere Austrian director.
We encounter one right at the beginning when Anna Maria (Maria Hof- stätter), an evangelical Christian of the most fanatical hue, falls before a crucifix and begins violently flagellating herself. A later sequence, during which Anna Maria gets sexually intimate with the icon – think The Exorcist with less blood and profanity –is equally unlikely to be confused with the work of Steven Spielberg.
But the prize has to go to Anna Maria’s encounter with a group of middle-aged al fresco swingers. The episode sums up much that is striking and much that is daffy about Seidl’s approach. Walking home one evening, the protagonist is suddenly confronted with a mass of heaving flesh and a great deal of less-than-erotic grunting. Huh? Do such things really happen in Austrian fields?
At any rate, her appalled reaction – though more violently condemnatory than we’d expect from the average liberal –doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable in the circumstances. You don’t have to be a bible-basher to be flung into despair by the goings on in Herr Seidl’s universe.
As ever, the power of his vision must be acknowledged. We first met Anna Maria in Paradise Love (the trilogy will be completed with Paradise Hope), when her sister dropped by before heading off for a sordid Seidlesque holiday in Africa. It transpires that Anna Maria is a kind of domestic missionary. While not working as a medical technician, she visits drunks and pleads with them to accept Jesus into their hearts. Just when it looks as if we have the characters pegged – a suburban drone who hasn't lived – Seidl throws us a complete curveball: Anna Maria has a Muslim husband who uses a wheelchair.
Wolfgang Thaler’s cold photography is impressively alienating. The performances are brave and convincing throughout. Seidl is unquestionably very secure in his own, discombobulating aesthetic convictions. But the relentless nihilism ultimately seems just a teeny bit juvenile. Go to the naughty step and think about what you’ve done, Ulrich!
