Dog Days

Colour, 35mm
Austria, 2001, 120 min
Section: Horizons - Awarded Films

Synopsis

The story of this documentary-type film debut for director Ulrich Seidl unfolds one weekend in an anonymous Viennese suburb. In a no-man’s land between the autobahn, massive supermarkets and warehouses, we are treated to the monotony of weekend work and activities which are performed without the least sign of pleasure. It’s sweltering and, already wearing the skimpiest of clothing, people are beginning to show signs of psychological stress. The temperature is rising, the atmosphere of the late weekend afternoon becomes more and more tense, and aggressions begin to seethe. The evening will be full of games, sex and violence. The director confronts his audience with characters whose lives intersect in various ways, and with their desperate longing for love and the almost hopeless possibility of finding and holding onto it. Ulrich Seidl said about the making of the film: “Dog Days is a so-called real movie with a real script, real stories and real actors. But at the same time there are many things that are different. There was a script but no written dialogue, there were actors but more nonactors, and we focused on a more documentary style.” The movie won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s at the Venice IFF 2001.

About the director

Ulrich Seidl (b. 1952, Vienna) came to filmmaking relatively late, more precisely when he co-scripted Michael Glawogger’s Krieg in Wien. He then began making documentary films, and his restless style and, above all, his portrayal of humanity’s isolated and intimate moments made him an international success. His documentary work was honoured at last year’s Toronto IFF with a retrospective, and Werner Herzog ranks him among his ten top filmmakers; Herzog had this to say about Animal Love (Tierische Liebe): “I have never looked so directly into hell in the cinema.” Dog Days, a film the director spent several years making, is his first feature. Filmography: Good News – Von Kolporteuren, toten Hunden und anderen Wienern (1991), Loss Is to Be Expected (Mit Verlust ist zu rechnen, l992), The Last Real Man (Die Letzten Männer, l994), Animal Love (Tierische Liebe, l999), Models (1999), Dog Days (Hundstage 2OOl – winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Venice).