Safari, Ulrich Seidl, Austria, 2016, 90’, OV with Spanish subtitles (march 18), OV with Basque subtitles (march 24), DCP
The observant eye of Ulrich Seidl once again uses his documentary camera to poignantly portray the decadence of European society: on this occasion he takes careful aim - and pulls the trigger – on the world of big game hunting in Africa. Yes, he has a go, this time, at sightseeing trips to nature reserves in Botswana, for example, to shoot elephants.
If, in his previous film, Seidl dissected the hidden philia and phobia in Austrian basements, this time he takes us out into the open. The colourfully camouflaged Austrian upper class travels to luxury resorts in Africa to organise hunting trips where each piece is secured with difficulty and at a price. Every single word and gesture that informs such a way of life, such pursuit of leisure aptly reflects "what we are deep down, in the pith of our soul."
This is the essence of the quasi-photographic documentary film of this essential Austrian director: the observation of decadence, to provoke reflection, coughing up those uncomfortable, critical questions hardly anyone dares ask anymore: Is the colonial system still firmly entrenched in old Europe? Can money buy everything? Can the act of shooting and all that goes with it be understood as a continuation of non-ending, ancestral war? Is this racism? Is this fascism? Seidl replies from the cinema, from the essence of cinema, and that is what we appreciate most about his provocation. The fact that the beauty and the destruction of a giraffe, for example, makes us wonder about what we are, what we have been, what we can become again.
The observant eye of Ulrich Seidl once again uses his documentary camera to poignantly portray the decadence of European society: on this occasion he takes careful aim - and pulls the trigger – on the world of big game hunting in Africa.