Reviews / 10 July 2004

Dog Days

Dog Days
Hundstage  /  Austria  /  2001

One gets the impression from watching Dog Days that its director, Ulrich Seidel, wants nothing more than to be the next Michael Haneke but has absolutely no clue how to go about it other than by filming his actors in demeaning situations. Dog Days has no plot or story to speak of; it is essentially six superficially related, intercut vignettes of suburban life as they occur during an extreme heat wave. Seidel, apparently not seeing the point in providing most of his characters with names or characterizations, has forced me to devise creative ways of keeping track of each vignette in my notes on the film. I have listed them as Mario and girlfriend, security system salesman, weird fat old man, divorced couple, old whore, and crazy hitchhiker.

Mario is mean to his girlfriend out of jealousy. The security system salesman has a lot of job stress. The weird fat old man makes his housekeeper dress up in his dead wife’s dress and perform a strip tease for him on what would have been his fiftieth wedding anniversary. The divorced couple ignores each other. The old whore gets beat up and abused. The crazy hitchhiker likes to sing commercial jingles and recite top ten lists. And that, folks, is the film.

Stylistically void, intellectually vapid, narratively coarse, and exploitative of its actors in the worst possible way, the film is an abject failure on every level. It is nothing more than ugly people leading ugly lives and doing ugly things to each other. Material, possibly, for a very interesting film, but this is not that film.

Comments / 6 total / Submit Comment

  1. Antonio
    14 July 2008
    11:48 AM

    I hope your appreciation of film has developed since you wrote this “review”. I was curious what you might say about the film — apparently nothing, aside from a few prejudices that you get out of your system (like the one about a film lacking a plot being a “bad” thing). Try some films by Alexander Sokurov or Bela Tarr, they’ll be sure to either enlighten you completely or kill you off.

  2. Rumsey
    14 July 2008
    12:26 PM
    Website

    I’m a little curious as to what you would say about the film, Antonio.

  3. Criff
    14 July 2008
    5:12 PM

    I don’t know what Antonio has to say, but I find all of Seidl’s movies to be mesmerizing, especially Models and Animal Love. If there was even one American filmmaker who decided to be inspired by Seidl’s aesthetic I would be a happy filmgoer. I am looking forward to seeing Import/Export, when and if it ever comes to Los Angeles, which I doubt. Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick I hate this city. Do you know that I have to listen to Style Council all day long to keep myself in a good mood? Is there a filmmaker in this city that would dare practice the self-abegnation that Seidl does from film to film? No way. Because the filmmakers here need to keep moving. They need to duck, dart and dodge around you at all times, waving their hands, making sure that you know they’ve seen (insert obscure piece of 70s pop culture detritus here). As Ariel Pink says, Life in LA is so lonely that way.

  4. Antonio
    15 July 2008
    2:16 PM

    Rumsey, I would say that this is a film made in Austria that could have been set in any liberated and diverse country in the world — which I gather was something that Matt Bailey felt uncomfortable about judging by the way he vehemently rejected this piece’s status as a film which by implication, quite correctly (though he didn’t mean it this way), points up its real life qualities. I’ve never seen a film which so nakedly captures and projects the bestial qualities of mankind. Emil Cioran would have been proud of this film. That is something many people will not be comfortable with. Nothing wrong with that, we all have different taste; but there is something wrong when a biased, self-indulgent rant passes for criticism of any kind. I am happy that I saw the film first and then had a look around for reviews afterwards as otherwise I would have missed quite an experience. In any case no hard feelings, it just doesn’t do your interesting site any credit. To Matt Bailey: your punishment — Bela Tarr’s 7 hour Satantango!

  5. Rumsey
    15 July 2008
    3:38 PM
    Website
    […] but there is something wrong when a biased, self-indulgent rant passes for criticism of any kind.

    Just peeking in to note this wonderful, wonderful irony.

  6. Antonio
    16 July 2008
    12:48 AM

    What is ironic about it? There is only one rant on this page, and only one attempt at film criticism. Unfortunately both failed.

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Credits

Directed by
Ulrich Seidl

Review by
Matt Bailey

Source
Kino Video DVD

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10 July 2004

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