Zur Lage
Barbara Albert, Michael Glawogger, Ulrich Seidl, Michael Sturminger / AT, 2002 / 85 min.
After the right-wing election landslide, four directors set out across Austria searching for signs of the political and social situation of its citizens. In his segment, Ulrich Seidl confronts everyday racism that spirals into an absurd xenophobia. Grim and uncomfortably funny.
Four directors, four perspectives, four realities.
Why do people tolerate Jörg Haider’s ideas or even find them appealing? The directors of Zur Lage reveal the perennial xenophobia in Austria. Seidl’s second chapter ‘Johann Leeb’ is about an obsessive writer of letters to the media and in another of his segments we end up in a bar where two drinkers increasingly loudly voice their opinions on their fatherland with a disturbing climax.
Ulrich Seidl: "The idea for the film crystallized in 1999 when, for security reasons, the inauguration of the new, conservative coalition of the far-right Freedom Party was held underground. Austria was suddenly politicized, nobody wanted to remain silent. But the goal of State of the Nation (Zur Lage) was not to talk about the government, but rather about the governed: Austrian women and men, their daily lives, their fears, their notions of national identity, their desires. It was meant to be a film of resistance. But against all of us."
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Special screenings
Details
Director
Barbara Albert, Michael Glawogger, Ulrich Seidl, Michael Sturminger
Production year
2002
Country
AT
Original title
Zur Lage
Length
85 min.
Language
German
Subtitles
ENG
Format
35mm
Part of
Ulrich Seidl
Eye Filmmuseum presents Ulrich Seidl – Über das Leben, die Liebe und den Tod, the first exhibition – and the first complete film overview – of the renowned Austrian filmmaker in the Netherlands. Featuring a wealth of early, little-known and newly commissioned (film) works, the exhibition confronts visitors with the lives of a number of seemingly ordinary individuals, people who try to, in their own ways, make something of life in a late-capitalist society in which meaning has been replaced by consumerism.
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