- Director
Barbara Albert ... - Production company
Lotus Film GmbH
State of the Nation: Austria in Six Chapters
Zur Lage: Österreich in sechs Kapiteln, Austria, 2002, 105 min, 35 mm, Politics
It wasn‘t the goal to make just a report on Austria but to contribute to a discussion. Turn the spectator into another debater. The moving picture of the group of four directors tries to render the social situation, economic factors and the ideology mixtures that naturally outline the present life without significant concessions. The document is not a critic analysis of Austrian political crises, which could be a symptom of western-european standards. It is rather its statement, which is more less a consequence of sociological reckoned on practical life of presentation of representative types.
Barbara Albert portraitured working women, single mothers. A cashier in a supermarket, a worker at an endless band in a factory, a convinced elector for the Freedom a woman of Turkish nationality and an unemployed artist of action. The director catches them in brief moments of everyday life however even from there we can read what the political conviction grows from.
Michael Glawogger set off by himself. During three weeks he crossed Austria hitchhiking. With a small camera he was getting in to random drivers. The journey mainly followed the state border. The most often picture there is a driver with the countryside running away behind the window. The sentence fragments are glued together as a mosaic of views and opinions on the government, opposition, the monarch and the European Union, on immigrants.
Ulrich Seidl. The most ordinary Austrians as well, fascinate the director of controversial movie Psí dny (Dog days) presented in Czech cinemas, the intimacy of their stereotype lives. He chose one of the monotonous motives for his part of the collective document. - A notorious complainer, who spends his life writing letters to authorities and an elderly couple, who view themselves surrounded with a bunch of foreigners, as the country and tradition savers.
Michael Strumminger followed a prominent telecast and peaked into two different living rooms. He found there children and their grandparents - two groups not interested in politics. Not yet and not any more. However, there is a shadow on them as well. The bipolarity tension between politics and non-politics follows the whole film, which only summaries, points and in places condensed way popularize the endless discussion about the state of public affairs. The bearers of different ideas are the heroes of the dialogue and they make it human. They live their lives, there are parts of history and beyond them, they are indifferent although they feel how much politics affects them. They take part there meanwhile it‘s as if they wanted stay out of time. The Austrians.
Barbara Albert portraitured working women, single mothers. A cashier in a supermarket, a worker at an endless band in a factory, a convinced elector for the Freedom a woman of Turkish nationality and an unemployed artist of action. The director catches them in brief moments of everyday life however even from there we can read what the political conviction grows from.
Michael Glawogger set off by himself. During three weeks he crossed Austria hitchhiking. With a small camera he was getting in to random drivers. The journey mainly followed the state border. The most often picture there is a driver with the countryside running away behind the window. The sentence fragments are glued together as a mosaic of views and opinions on the government, opposition, the monarch and the European Union, on immigrants.
Ulrich Seidl. The most ordinary Austrians as well, fascinate the director of controversial movie Psí dny (Dog days) presented in Czech cinemas, the intimacy of their stereotype lives. He chose one of the monotonous motives for his part of the collective document. - A notorious complainer, who spends his life writing letters to authorities and an elderly couple, who view themselves surrounded with a bunch of foreigners, as the country and tradition savers.
Michael Strumminger followed a prominent telecast and peaked into two different living rooms. He found there children and their grandparents - two groups not interested in politics. Not yet and not any more. However, there is a shadow on them as well. The bipolarity tension between politics and non-politics follows the whole film, which only summaries, points and in places condensed way popularize the endless discussion about the state of public affairs. The bearers of different ideas are the heroes of the dialogue and they make it human. They live their lives, there are parts of history and beyond them, they are indifferent although they feel how much politics affects them. They take part there meanwhile it‘s as if they wanted stay out of time. The Austrians.
Director:
Ulrich Seidl, Barbara Albert, Michael Glawogger, Michael Sturminger
Screenplay:
Ulrich Seidl, Barbara Albert, Michael Glawogger, Michael Sturminger
Photography:
Eva Testor, Michael Glawogger, Ulrich Seidl
Music:
Patrik Pulsinger
Sound:
Ekkehart Baumung, Elisabeth Reeh, Torsten Heinemann
Languages:
German
Subtitles:
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