Disturbing Ulrich Seidl and toxic and unhealthy sexualities

The two films start in exactly the same way, with a group photo of several elderly people singing in a residence, and end with one of them crying alone in his room. In ‘Rimini’, veteran singer of the ‘schlager’ genre (German songs with an emotional twist and extremely catchy), Richie Bravo returns home for his mother’s funeral. There, she finds photographs of the masculine men in her room, her brother Ewald, and her old man father, crying at the residence, suffering from senile dementia. Once the procedure is complete, Richie returns to his adopted city of Fellinian Rimini. He gets along with mature women who pay him for sex and try to flirt with a younger woman without knowing what it is… (‘spoiler’)

The protagonist of ‘Sparta’ is Ewald, whom we see spending hours in silence in his father’s room in the residence. He lives in Romania, but he is breaking up with his girlfriend because his desire for children was crushed by the various shots where everything is told without showing anything. ‘Sparta’ is the story of a pedophile who tries to fight his instincts., but transforms a dilapidated school into a gym where the children of a battered Romanian population learn judo. It is also a physical and spiritual stronghold honoring the legendary 300 Spartans recreated in Frank Miller’s comic book and Zack Snyder’s homoerotic movie. Ewald practices judo with them, they shower together, take pictures of him, and later reflect in the solitude of his room.. It also protects them from the poisonous masculinity of their parents. Seidl shows, never judges, and thus achieves one of his most brilliant works, consisting of geometric planes of design in which the imperfections and inconveniences of our society are stripped away.

But ‘Sparta’ got into unnecessary controversy. ‘Rimini’ was screened at the Berlin festival without any problems. ‘Sparta’ was chosen in San Sebastián. A few weeks ago, last August, the German tabloid newspaper ‘Der Spiegel’ published a story about the shooting of the film. It seems that the parents of the children between the ages of 9 and 15 in the movie did not know what the plot of the movie was.. They thought it was about the story of some kids learning judo. Filming took place in a Romanian village between 2018 and 2019. Seidl was accused of abusing children and not adequately preparing them or their teachers for certain scenes they would be filming. After seeing the movie, only one suspicious movie comes to my mind, the movie where they shower in the gym and Ewald walks around completely naked among the kids, Seidl and ‘Sparta’ are doomed. He has already been able to demonstrate that he and his producers follow all the procedures outlined in these situations. It created one of the controversies that sometimes helped and in other cases condemned the film to ostracism. It did pretty well in San Sebastián. The director decided at the last moment not to go to the festival. On September 17, he sent a note to the press: “My first impulse was to go to San Sebastián and not leave alone the film my team and I have been working on for a long time. However, I realized that my presence at the premiere could overshadow the acceptance of the film. Now it’s time to speak for the film itself.”

The next day, he sent another statement to be read before the screening, explaining that he was here in Romania and showing the movie to the kids and their parents with nothing. Both movies are hitting theaters today. The audience will be able to judge the tact, wit, or argument—never provocation—with which Seidl is confronted with one of the most intricate problems of human behavior.