Safari, like many of the films at True/False, will probably prove quite divisive, both for its difficult content and its tone. There were several walkouts at the screening I attended. I was not among them. I found Safari’s scathing, bleak take on big game hunting absolutely energizing. It’s a film I’d recommend to anyone, so long as they aren’t prone to queasiness.
The well-established Austrian documentarian Ulrich Seidl follows an Austrian extended family as they pursue the big kills in the Namibian savannah. Seidl establishes an idiosyncratic rhythm early on, following the hunters in the field with long takes and often handheld camerawork, then watching patiently as they pose their kills afterward. He alternates these field scenes with “interviews” that feature the various family members (and the couple who own the hunting grounds) offering justifications and explanations for their actions. The first half of the film has an almost lulling effect in its careful, dry approach.
That makes the sharp turn of the film’s second half all the more effective. Seidl does not change style or tone, keeping things detached and neutral, but the events being captured become more disturbing as small changes occur to the entrenched pattern of the filmmaking. Seidl begins to pull the layers back and reveal the horror at the heart of the enterprise, one built on cruelty and colonial exploitation. The film never gets anywhere near preachiness, opting instead to let its characters reveal themselves in damning ways through their own obliviousness.
The film also gets much more graphic in its second half, as the animals become trophies before our very eyes. Again, a warning: the film contains several quite graphic scenes of animals being flayed and dismembered. In a scene that will haunt my mind for days, the hunters shoot a giraffe then watch as its life force drains away from it. Through all the carnage Safari never bats an eye, opting for careful observation over sermonizing. It’s a lesson many films could stand to learn – the power inherent in simple, patient watching.
Of course no documentary is a truly neutral set of observations, and Seidl reveals the critique at his film’s core through careful editing. Each scene in the film fits together like a puzzle piece. Shots echo others that have come before, but also comment on them in subtle ways. Like a theme and variations, Safari gains its power through repetition with a difference.
