(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
In his previous movie Im Keller Austrian Ulrich Seidl showed his countrymen and women their basements and what they like to do in them. The idea worked perfectly for the filmmaker, who through both his documentaries and feature films has been an avid chronicler of the darker sides of the Austrian population, with a rare ability to get the contributors to bid on pages of themselves that many would have kept beneath the surface.
Maybe then the concept was a bit too for perfect, then Im Keller was just about exactly the way a Seidl movie would be about this: In stylized tableaux in combination with more observant scenes, overweight Austrians proudly presented their basements and associated leisure pursuits, including playing horn music, performing bdsm sex, and collection of memorabilia from the days of National Socialism. And all the while the memories of Josef Fritzl's crimes rested heavily and unspoken across the various basements.
Exclusive hunting tourism. One of these basements was decorated with a plethora of stuffed animals, which may have put the filmmaker on track for his next film. In the documentary Safari Seidl follows various Austrians and Germans in search of Namibia and South Africa, where they sneak in and shoot animals such as wildebeest, warthog, buffalo, zebra and giraffe, which will end up as wall decorations in the hunters' respective homes. It all seems to take place in reasonably organized forms in their own parks, where locally known Africans organize and show how they should proceed, and where these Europeans are reportedly paying far more (including detailed price lists for the various animals they may need to shoot) than ordinary tourists. And to further emphasize the tourism that lies therein, each hunt portrayed with a solemn photograph of the hunter who fired from the falling shot ends with his once-majestic prey.
The observational hunting sequences are combined with interviews with the same hunters (as well as a married couple who runs one of the hunting parks), filmed in Seidl's usual style: static images where the cut captures the surroundings as much as the interview objects, here characterized by a flashy selection of stuffed hunting trophies. In addition, he has included a couple of sequences in which one of the middle-aged couples in similar sections sunbathes, and which is just as unmistakably "silky" – and more specifically gives associations to his feature film dog Days from 2001.
Gufs from colonial times. The film also features scenes with the local staff peeling and cleaning the animal carcasses, while the white hunters stand and watch their work. And here it is not only the quantities of blood and the intestines that cause discomfort, but to the greatest extent the obvious parallels to the colonial era.
Further contains Safari some scenes where these Africans are also portrayed in more tabloid scenes, like the safari tourists. But when Europeans are being interviewed about their hunting experiences, these people stand staring silently at the camera – if they do not chew the meat of the slaughtered animals. In this way, too, the film emphasizes the ever-present distinction between "us" and "them", where it is presumably a point that precisely the Europeans are given the power that lies in being able to explain and defend their actions verbally, unlike the Africans. Well to note without the exclusive hunting hobby appearing somewhat less archaic or grotesque with these statements. Nor are such portrayed Europeans experienced as anything less racist when they try to express their respect for the local population by highlighting their superior abilities as runners, complete with a physiological explanation, and then to point out that this applies when Africans first will.
Here it is not only the quantities of blood and the intestines that cause discomfort, but to the greatest extent the obvious parallels to the colonial era.
Pure expression. Like Im Keller er Safari a film that carries Ulrich Seidel's distinct signature as a filmmaker, both in form and content. Now, though, he has had a distinct style throughout his career, and of course there is respect for a filmmaker who continues to cultivate his distinctive expression in such uncompromising fashion.
At the same time feels Safari like a something clear film from Seidl's side, again like Im Keller. Moreover, it feels a little too simple, which is possibly also a consequence of the aforementioned cultivation. Here is not much left of the thought-provoking ambivalence of Seidl's feature film Paradise: Love, which portrayed middle-aged Austrian women in search of love for young African men – and where none of the characters were undoubtedly sympathetic or unsympathetic. (A movie that, like all of Seidl's feature films, drew a lot from the documentary genre, as his documentaries often include pure staging.)
Us and them? Instead, Seidl emphasizes this time the distinction between "us" and "them" (which, of course, was also strongly present in Paradise: Love) in such a solid way that we are rather left with two different types of "them", one being inedible colonists and the other reduced to extras. Thus, humanism is missing, which used to shine through all the darkness in Seidl's films, and made them something far more complex and disruptive than just superficial safaris to the dark sides of humanity.
"The world would have been better off without people," is Safaris last reply. I do not think Ulrich Seidl himself agrees with the statement, but it is a little too easy to think this when watching his latest film. And then it's probably time he challenges himself to add his next safari to a lesser-known terrain.
The film will be shown at the European documentary film festival Eurodok at the Cinemateket in Oslo, which will be held in the period 29.3 to 2.4.
