Dog Days

Be forewarned: Dog Days, like many of Seidel's films, will drive some moviegoers to rage and walkouts with its unrelentingly depressing tone. But it also a remarkable, deeply disturbing work by a brilliant filmmaker.

The believability comes from the casting: he has found a group of actors and nonprofessionals who interact spectacularly well.

Dog Days has much in common with "Code Unknown" -- both dart among several characters who may occasionally cross paths.

Willfully provocative, much like a small child performing outrageous acts just to get some attention.

It is admirable and well-made, but unutterably depressing and unredeemed by any glimmer of hope.

Working with non-professional actors, Seidl emphasizes their ordinariness to the point of cartoonish ridicule, putting them in scenarios either banal, perverse, or both at the same time.

Dog Days adheres dogmatically to the school of sado-miserablism that Seidl's compatriots Michael Haneke and Jessica Hausner have turned into something of a national industry (non-Austrian adherents abound too, from Gaspar Noé to Harmony Korine).