Safari

The best doc of Ulrich Seidl. Brilliant cynicism and sense of humor.

This people should be killed,not the animals. Cant belive this kind of prople exist.

Austrian writer-director Ulrich Seidl has made a name in the festival circle with dramas such as "Dog Days" and the Paradise trilogy. Seidl has also directed a number of documentaries, for example "In the Basment", which screened at the 2014 Venice International Film Festival. His latest film, "Safari" (2016), is a documentary about European hunting tourists vacationing in Namibia in southern Africa. Explicitly portraying the hunt for and the slaughter of wild animals combined with scenes of the Europeans reflecting over their love of the hunt, the film manages to convey both a feeling of excitement and a sense of brutality, leaving the viewer to decide whether it's right or wrong. Unavoidably, the white man-black man relationship adds another dimension to the picture.

I have always been a big fan of the work of Seidl. Seen most of his work and it always brought a big smile on my face, even when the subject was not so funny. Seidl's work has a clear signature, a lot of his images are styled. After seeing this documentary at the International Filmfestical Of Rotterdam it felt as too much fiction in a non fiction very sad story about hunters. It's a matter of taste you can argue about. But what me stroke after my dislike is that it suddenly felt as a conceptual trick which he is repeating over and over again. It brings him success that's for sure, but he lost my respect with his provoking appeal of a group of people with a disturb way of thinking. In my eyes it had nothing to do with objectivity but with a form of repeating art.