BFI London Film Festival: Safari

BFI Film Festival: 245 features. 74 countries. 15 cinemas. 12 days. One Festival.

Brilliant provocateur Ulrich Seidl again turns his camera on his fellow Austrians on holiday. This time, he’s on safari at a white-owned ranch in Namibia. Even the most tender father-son moments look sinister through Seidl’s lens, as an athletic Austrian couple in their early 40s hunt beautiful rare creatures with their teenage children. Building the film from his trademark eccentric tableaus and interviews, Seidl documents disturbing sequences on the hunt; a local white rancher drinking himself into a stupor in a bird-watching hut and meticulous scenes of Namibian ranch-hands processing furs and heads for the tourists to take home as the trophies from the hunt. Anyone distressed by disregard for rare and endangered animals’ lives be warned – a chilling observation of the most insidious white privilege. Disturbing, yes. But fascinating nonetheless.

This film contains scenes of animal cruelty

(Notes by Tricia Tuttle)

Safari, dir. Ulrich Seidl, Austria/Denmark 2016, 91 mins, cert. 15.

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