Im Keller

Following his Paradies trilogy, Ulrich Seidl returned to the documentary format with this carefully stylized portrait of a number of Austrians and their basements where, according to Seidl, his countrymen were traditionally wont to indulge in their most intimate hobbies. Seidl digs underneath the spotless pavements of Austria”s suburbs to find some weird situations. He cast this portrait in an extremely uncomfortable intimate mould, leaving it up to the viewer to decide to what extent Seidl actually directed or manipulated these scenes of human eccentricity.

Seidl filmed a middle-aged man testing the acoustics of his hollow basement amidst a plethora of targets; a married and affable man whose basement is stuffed with Nazi souvenirs; a young woman who traded her job in a supermarket to become a prostitute, and a couple involved in a mistress-slave relationship. Then there is friendly-looking Alfreda, who filled her small basement with uncannily realistic dolls, all waiting to be cuddled and comforted.

This is the first time Seidl worked together with cameraman Martin Gschlacht, best known for his geometric work for fellow Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner. In their carefully shot gloomy interiors, Seidl”s subjects candidly and courageously share their greatest fears and desires. Seidl himself said: “The basement symbolizes Austria”s subconscious. It is a place of darkness, a place of fear, a place of the human abyss.”

The film has not been released in the Netherlands before and is now showing in EYE.