The films of the Austrian director and professional misanthrope Ulrich Seidl (Dog Days, Paradise: Love) don’t tend to be filled with empathy for the rest of the human race. He delights in teasing out the most shameful secrets and mortifying indignities of everything from old age to sexual desire, frequently combining the two for added impact. But in his latest picture there’s a hint of something new.
Rimini, co-written by Seidl and regular collaborator Veronika Franz, is a maliciously funny drama about an incorrigible ladies’ man and failed German lounge singer trawling an out-of-season Italian resort and surviving on the dregs of his meagre celebrity. Richie Bravo (Michael Thomas) is the absolute worst person imaginable. Slicked with beer sweats and fake tan, he sharks his way into the affections of the elderly female fans in hotel bars that are lit like the killing floor of an abattoir.
His first reaction, when confronted by the daughter he abandoned, is self-pity. He is, against all odds, a survivor – a persistent floater in the toilet bowl of life. What’s interesting, though, is the way that Seidl approaches him as a character. It’s not sympathetic exactly – Seidl is not, after all, in the business of cutting people any slack. But there’s a hint of grudging affection for this irredeemably awful person, and it’s this, the slight softening of the trademark Seidl savagery, that tips the balance of the film from tragic to comic.
