Amoeba Music

Filmed over the course of three summers in Austria, this is one of the rare films that uses weather as a means to accentuate emotions. It is therefore what I consider to be "cold cinema." I coined the term to apply to a filmmaking technique that is not "warm"  - or rather, one that doesn’t pull at your heartstrings or target a certain emotion from a general audience. I don't even think that cold cinema expects an audience but, when found, it always seems to leave a lasting impression.

The key to this kind of movie is the emphasis on characters and secondary elements of the story, such as weather. Foreign films tend to use this technique a lot, and for a while films like There Will Be Blood and Doubt were sort of recent American equivalents. They are movies that demand no particular response, and therefore every viewer takes away something different. Many of them don't have soundtracks. I think it's a wonderful technique because it forces you to figure out why you were impressed with or disliked a movie. Dog Days is an introductory accomplishment for Seidl (Import/Export, Models) and is a marvelous example of the roles we take on as human beings, and the conditions that make some of us exercise power over others. Figuring out that this is what the film meant to me was far more rewarding than having a definite interpretation.

The movie follows the lives of seven people who live in suburban Vienna: Anna (Maria Hofstätter), an old man (Erich Finsches), a separated couple (Claudia Martini, Victor Rathbone), a former pageant girl turned stripper (Franziska Weisz), and a teacher (Christine Jirku). Other townspeople are essential to the plot, but each one relates to these main characters.

Anna is the village idiot. It's not really clear whether she is slow or mildly insane. Her only pastime is hitchhiking around the town with strangers in order to quiz them on statistics and ask rude, personal questions. It's like the reality show Cash Cab gone terribly wrong. Her zany intrusions are one of the many episodes of comedy throughout the movie, which keeps a good balance because everything else is so depressing.

Another loon is an old man who has a bizarre relationship with his maid. The funniest scene involving him is when she comes home with groceries and he immediately weighs them. They are inconsistent in weight, so he and the maid drive to the market and cause a fuss over how he was cheated.

Then we have a married couple who is separated and yet still live together. They don't speak to each other after the death of their young daughter, and the house has been turned into a passive-aggressive warzone. The wife brings home men and attends orgies to cope, while the husband walks around bouncing a tennis ball, attempting to annoy anyone in earshot.

Then there is former Miss Lower Austria, a young, pretty girl who lives with her mother and spends her free time stripping. When not strutting on some stage or another, she spends time with her crazy and abusive boyfriend.

The last of the main characters is a teacher with an amazing operatic voice who happens to be a nymphomaniac. Her boyfriend is a chubby thug who takes things too far one night and starts a bizarre chain of events that leaves her in misery.

I have seen a different cut of the movie and would recommend the unrated director's cut over all others. I forgot that I had seen the movie before until I realized that I had heard the annoying psycho-babble of Anna before. While the movie does have a lot of dark humor, there are definitely some depressing and downright frightening scenes—more of which are in this cut and give the film a great balance. The movie also introduces certain elements of characters that you will not find anywhere else, such as the confident striptease of an elderly woman, the neighbor from hell, and a shyster to top all shysters.

The sweltering "dog days" of the summer seems to represent the emotions of all the characters, each on the verge of burning out or completely losing it. Likewise, the first big rain of the summer represents the tears in battle from each person who fought their micro-war with humanity and lost. Here you will find an example of manicured violence that will affect your conscience, whether you think you're a good person or not.