Rimini

In a terrific performance, Michael Thomas plays an Austrian pop star who is now well past his prime.

Michael Thomas

The Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl is an artist who found his voice relatively early on. It is the case that he also makes documentaries, but it is his dramas that have gained a wide release and have made his name internationally. Dog Days, which dates from 2001, set the tone and Import Export (2007) confirmed his uncompromisingly harsh view of life. Since then he has given us an ambitious trilogy (Paradise: Love; Paradise: Faith; Paradise: Hope), works which despite their titles were as bleak as ever, and now comes Rimini conceived as the first part of a diptych. Once again the screenplay is by Seidl and his wife, Veronika Franz, and, despite the gap of nearly a decade since the trilogy (a period, during which Seidl has made two documentary features) the character of this work shows no change in outlook.

The central figure in Rimini is Richie Bravo (Michael Thomas) who is first seen returning to Austria for his mother’s funeral. While there he sees his brother, Ewald (Georg Friedrich) and visits his elderly father (the late Hans-Michael Rehberg). The latter is suffering from dementia and is now resident in a nursing home. However, the scene soon changes and we are in the Italian coastal city of Rimini which has become Richie’s home. He has had a career as a singer and indeed still continues to perform. Nevertheless, he is well past his prime having been an artist who on stage had consciously played on his sex appeal. He still wears clothes suited to that image and specialises in romantic songs, but his audience now consists of tourists in hotels and, while he still has a following, most of his fans are ageing women as eager as he is to live in the past. The incongruous nature of how he now presents himself gives the film its one element of humour and does so very effectively.

Understandably a number of critics have compared Rimini to The Singer the 2006 film in which Gérard Depardieu played another aging vocalist but, since this is an Ulrich Seidl film, Richie Bravo is a much less sympathetic character. We soon learn that Richie regularly supplements his income by liaising with fans who are prepared to pay for his sexual services. Two of them, Annie (Claudia Martini) and Emmi (Inge Maux), are leading characters, lonely women pathetically unable to make anything of their lives as they age. The fact that when Richie has sex with Annie her old infirm mother is in bed in the next room adds to the sense of desperation and makes the situation feel even more sordid. The impact on the viewer is all the stronger because Seidl characteristically portrays the sex scene very candidly. Later on, Richie is quite ready to chat-up a younger woman who is present at one of his performances but is then taken aback to discover that she is his daughter - that’s Tessa (Tessa Göttlicher) whom he had not seen for eighteen years. He had failed to look after her and her mother financially and she now arrives in company with an Arab boyfriend to demand the money which should have supported her when she was growing up. Richie is understanding but lacks the funds to hand over all that she demands. In time we learn just how far he will go to obtain enough money to comply with her request in full whatever the cost to others may be.

Seidl has his own filmmaking style which favours limited camera movement but makes finely judged images a feature (Rimini was filmed by his regular photographer Wolfgang Thuler). He has a great sense of atmosphere too and, as in Import Export, this film uses winter scenes tellingly as it explores drab lives. Yet another skill to be found in Seidl’s work is his ability to obtain very natural performances from his players and in this instance the pivotal performance by Michael Thomas is a tour-de-force as he totally inhabits the character of Richie Bravo. That is a great asset and one that is needed given that the characters in the story are largely so unappealing.

But, if Seidl can seem ruthless in his unflinching portrayal of these people, it is striking that he refuses to condemn them out of hand. Richie may live off others as a con man does, but even so it can be argued that, despite taking cash payments, he does give his sexually demanding fans what they crave – and when faced by Tessa's demands he does recognise that he has indeed neglected her and should pay up. Nevertheless, details along the way do seem to point to the likelihood of Richie getting his comeuppance eventually which would give this story a strong, dramatic arc. In the result, however, although he ends up in an uncomfortable place what happens is less than we expect and that ultimately weakens the power of the film. Indeed, Rimini ends not with Richie but with his father whose dementia has not concealed the fact that he was a Nazi sympathiser who appears to have kept that mindset. Consequently, he is yet another figure who might have been presented simply as a man we should hate. But that is not how the film treats him. It certainly doesn't sympathise with him, but the inclusion of part of Schubert’s Winterreise on the soundtrack during his final scene suggests that for Seidl disgust loses out to pity – and that is a viewpoint often found in his artistic output.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Michael Thomas, Tessa Göttlicher, Inge Maux, Claudia Martini, Hans-Michael Rehberg, Georg Friedrich.

Dir Ulrich Seidl, Pro Ulrich Seidl, Philippe Bober and Michel Merkt, Screenplay Ulrich Seidl and Veronika Franz, Ph Wolfgang Thaler, Pro Des Andreas Donhauser and Renate Martin, Ed Monika Willi, Music Fritz Ostermayer and Herwig Zamernik, Costumes Tanja Hausner.

Ulrich Seidl Film Produktion/Parisienne de Production/Essential Films/Arte France Cinéma/Bayerischer Rundfunk/Bord Cadre Films-Sovereign Film Distribution.
114 mins. Germany/France/Austria. 2022. UK Rel: 9 December 2022. Cert. 18.