Review of Animal Love (1996) by Raul B — 16 Dec 2008

A melancholically comic and critical documentary portrait of multiple different pet lovers in bleak Eastern Europe. The viewer is inundated with scenes of lonely humans pawing fetishisically at their domesticated pets, always on the subversive periphery of anything overtly beastial. The overall effect is too understandibly unpleasent for many, judging by the aborted viewings described in the netflix reviews, though many others will find it worthwhile (though tough going) as any honest view into dark subject matter may demand.

Fetishism, which we can define as when one part is elevated above the whole, is ultimately revealed to be director Ulrich Seidl's subject here. More specifically, pets as a fetishistic conduit between humans who have unhealthily surrendered to the sensory titilation of contact with animals, or in some cases the animal nature of contact between humans or between ahuman and himself.

All fetishsim is a surrender. These are lonely humans who have been unable to resist this inward withdrawal. This type of surrender takes the form of circularity, like water running down the drain or any repetitious/addictive act. Siedl's film is circular in its form because his stance is ironic toward his subjects, the forceful ambiguity of what subjects on the periphery of a character (when highlighted) can tell us about their core or soul. The static portraiture shots of the humans siletly staring at us with their comically oblivoius animals in the background take on an increasingly confrontational tone; despite their absent conscious awareness of the darker portents manifested in their "animal love" the expressions, an effect of the additive/repetitive nature of the film's design, become markers of shame. I like to think this implies that these souls are salvagable.