Animal Love

Tierische Liebe

Austria

1995

120 Min

Color

1.66:1

German

Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
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DP Michael Glawogger, Hans Selikovsky, Peter Zeitlinger

ED Michael Glawogger, Christof Neracher

The obsessive attention Austrians seemed to pay to their pets, especially cats and dogs. For these people, pets are companions, friends and fashion objects that need to be meticulously cared for. The film examines the eccentric world of lonely animal lovers in a modern society. As the director himself admits, this film speaks about a single theme: hell is us. —documentamadrid.com

Director

Ulrich Seidl

Ulrich Seidl was born in Vienna in 1952 and grew up in the town of Horn in Lower Austria. He studied journalism, art history and drama in Vienna, supporting himself with odd jobs, before entering the prestigious Vienna Film Academy at the age of 26. In 1980 he made his first documentary, Einsvierzig. Following the controversy surrounding his second film, Der Ball (1982) – a wickedly satirical portrait of the graduation ball in his home town – Seidl was asked to leave the Film Academy. In 1990 he returned to the scene with the feature-length documentary Good News. Within the decade Seidl was to make seven more documentaries for cinema and television, winning much acclaim and many prizes for his work.

Hundstage – Dog Days, his first fiction film, was released in 2001 and won several important awards, beginning with the grand jury prize at the Venice Film Festival in 2001. The same year also saw the release of Zur Lage / State of… read more

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herb shellenberger

21Jun11

Bleak as fuck.

Ferah likes this

Øyvind Rype

16Mar11

Basically a series of isolated tableuxs depicting the dysfunctional pet owners of Austria and showcasing animal/human-relationship gone too far. On paper, or rather the dvd cover the movie is indeed promising. Unfortunately with a 2hr runtime Seidl is bound to repeat himself and it suffers from way too much filler material. There is undoubtedly some gold here but it's regretably buried in dog excrements. **

Miki Brunou

23Feb11

I would like to rate this as a one-star film, just because it is so overtly blunt and one-dimensional. Almost like a propaganda film or a piece of pornography. However, there were a couple of stupendous and truly revealing scenes which made it stand out from the usual rubbish.