Models (1999)

When the kraut electronic group Kraftwerk wrote their hit single “Das Model” they probably did not have the radically repugnant pseudo-blonde bimbos of the Austrian film Models (1999) directed by Viennese auteur Ulrich Seidl (Dog Days aka Hundstage, Import/Export) in mind. Probably most notable for being Seidl’s only film that is not dominated by an Aryan freak show of ugly, obese, elderly, and/or severely mentally ill protagonists, Models depicts in a minimalistic yet meticulous manner the supreme superficiality and stupidity, soulless greed, childish narcissism, and mindless hedonism (especially where coke and cocks are concerned!) that seems to go hand-in-hand with being a model whose great talent is striking a conspicuously contrived pose for some perverted photographer. Indeed, despite the film's sometimes almost home-movie-like aesthetic, Seidl himself has stated that Models is the most difficult film he has ever directed, writing in a ‘director’s statement’ featured on his official website regarding the production: “Directing has probably never been as difficult for me as with this film. First of all: because models aren't used to others being interested in them as people. Secondly: because models are used to being treated badly. Thirdly: I was dealing with people who are used to money being their sole professional motivation But money can't be the basis of a productive collaboration for a film as I understand it.” After watching the film, I must tip my hat to Seidl for having to deal with these innately intolerable ladies for long enough to complete a feature film, as watching these airheaded Aryanesses for a mere two hours is surely something akin to metaphysical torture. I do not know if the myth that blondes are dumb was started when American Jewish businesswoman Ruth Handler invented the Barbie doll (which was ripped off a slightly less trashy German doll called the ‘Bild Lilli’ doll) or when Marilyn Monroe whored her way up Hollywood by becoming the most prized Shiksa in Tinseltown, but the gorgeous and, in some cases, would-be-gorgeous broads of Models totally transcend any sort of traditional negative blonde stereotypes and they are not even natural blondes. A piece of socially scathing “staged reality” set in a pathetic realm of demented post-MTV Austrian domestication full of vaginal douches, tarot cards, and lines of cocaine and populated by pretty yet plastic people whose personalities are just as phony as their lips and tits, Models is just another one of Seidl’s uniquely unflattering examples of how American hegemony has perverted Germanic kultur, namely ideal beauty. 

 Vivian (Viviane Bartsch) enjoys saying “I love you” to herself in the mirror, vomiting up her food in the toilet, routinely douching her overworked vag, laying completely unclad in a tanning bed while talking about men’s members (apparently, her first boyfriend's penis felt like “cold pizza”), accusing her long-term boyfriend Werner (Werner Hotzy) of cheating on her, and pathologically ruining her hair with various ugly perms, dye jobs, and pseudo-chic haircuts. Hyper hedonist Lisa (Lisa Grossmann) has fake duck-lips that make her look like an albino tranny Negro and she likes American negroes, preposterous plastic surgery, cocaine, vodka, tasers, large and obnoxious wigger coats, dancing in sleazy night clubs while high/stoned/horny, and screwing in slimy public restrooms. Tanja (Tanja Petrovsky) is slightly less degenerate and spends her time dabbling with tarots cards and other mystically minded mumbo jumbo, while Elvyra (Elvyra Geyer) does not really stick out amongst her ‘friends.’ Of course, what all these girls have most in common is their deluded dreams to become the next top magazine-cover-adorning glamour girls and despite putting poisonous drugs in their bodies, these lecherous ladies spend a good portion of their time beautifying themselves with a variety of wacky methods that seem to have nil results. Admittedly, these girls do not fuck around when it comes to ostensibly improving their looks and getting modeling gigs, as if tragic Guido porn star Moana Pozzi defecated in their brains. Vivian tells her boyfriend the sex is no longer good because she believes he no longer loves her and assumes he is cheating on her since he is always late. Ever the self-centered and sex starved girl, Vivian sees her boyfriend’s assumed sexual affairs as a great blessing, as it gives her the justification to go out and cheat herself, which she does with gusto, though her fuck buddies always mock and consider her a lame lay. In terms of men, the girls believes “Austrians are the worst” but also that “Spanish guys are animals…Proletarians to the max.” Despite their ostensibly high standards in men, Lisa begs for sex from lil American negroes and Vivian has no problem shaking her naughty bits in the face of an old and sleazy photographer named Peter Baumann, who she later screws, in a patently pathetic and groveling attempt to further her career. Undoubtedly, the unintentionally comical downward spiral that is vice-ridden Vivian’s life reaches an all time low in the last scene of Models when, after screwing a random dork of a dude with the rather fitting name Gernot Assinger, the rather dignified dude states, “Well…Doing it with you and all wasn’t as great…as you promised it would be” and proceeds to laugh at the lanky lady nonstop for about 3 minutes as if he is stoned on the model's hair dye. Indeed, if one learns anything while watching Seidl’s Models, it is that models are much dumber than they look and seem to be part of some sort of postmodern tribe from Monroe-ite hell. 

 Despite its long scenes, mostly still and static camera work, and intentionally repetitive scenes (many of the same exact shots/camera angles are repeated throughout the film), Models is arguably auteur Ulrich Seidl’s most accessible and least nuanced work as a sort of putridly pretty piece of anti-reality-TV that allows the kind of girls you would expect to find on MTV hang themselves with their own obscenely morally retarded words and discernibly degenerate deeds. As someone who has seen my fair share of Germanic films, what I found most shocking about Models is that, despite the fact they speak Austrian German, the ‘anti-heroines’ of the film are totally indistinguishable from the sort of insipid attention-addicted fake blondes you can find at any American sorority or sports bar. It would be easy and stereotypical to call the shallow chicks of Models ‘Eurotrash’ as some less creative reviewers have described them, but more than anything, these fallen Fräuleins are indubitably victims of a Hollywood lobotomy and American (non)culture hegemony. Certainly, if these women were brought up with the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM) as opposed to Snoop Dogg, Baywatch, Hebraic feminism and Barbie, they might have been caring mothers as opposed to careless whores. After all, I doubt any girl grows up dreaming of singing a song with a title like “Shave that Pussy” while high on coke and hunting for jigaboo meat when they become grown women. What I found most ironic about Models is that, while the model’s grandmothers probably associated blonde hair with purity and intelligence, the girls of Seidl's film, who are clearly not natural blondes to begin with, seem to believe their hair color is some sort of hot slut trump card and a license to act intentionally stupid and vapid 24/7, as if that is a turn-on or something (when, in reality, it is essentially an anti-Aryan Judaic myth that was invented by films like Billy Wilder's The Seven Year Itch (1955), which was not coincidentally but quite ironically directed by a Viennese Jew who once interviewed Arthur Schnitzler, Alfred Adler, and Sigmund Freud all on the same day during his pre-director days as a reporter). Of course, a lot has changed since The Seven Year Itch was released over half-a-century ago, as the German-speaking world now has progressive Jews like Daniel Cohn-Bendit who, in his book The Great Bazaar (1975) aka Der grosse Basar, brags about his various erotic excursions with Aryan five year-old children during his days as a kosher commie 'anti-fascist' kindergarten teacher. Naturally, one can only assume what happened to the girls of Models when they were children, but it is certainly without question that they were exposed to some sort of progressive learning, even if not of the Cohn-Bendit pedo sort. Neither straight narrative film nor authentic documentary, Models is a metaphysical affliction in celluloid form, with Seidl being the soul-doctor. Of course, Seidl merely diagnoses the problem as there is no cure for the models’ affliction, at least in a world where Steven Spielberg is the international Minister of Propaganda, a weak and effeminate mulatto ex-drug addict is the supposed leader of the most powerful and culturally corrosive country in the world, and where all moral and values of the Occident have been totally inverted to appease the (non)ethics (what Nietzsche called the 'slave morality') of Europa's perennial enemy.  Indeed, if you have ever wondered why something like the holocaust could happen, just consider the fact that the largely Hebrew-run democratic Weimar Republic Germany of post-WWI was only slightly less decadent than the globalized post-nationalist Occident of today, with Germany now being a country where the government has legalized prostitution and actively endorses borderline incestuous pedophilia between fathers and daughters (in 2007, Two 40-page booklets entitled "Love, Body and Playing Doctor" were released by the German Federal Health Education Center (Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung - BZgA) purporting that Fathers “do not devote enough attention to the clitoris and vagina of their daughters”, not to mention the fact that the German far-left has promoted the sexualization/molestation of children since the late-1960s) and that sells clit stimulator sex toys in vending machines. That being said, I would not be surprised if the roads to Auschwitz 2.0 were paved by silicone tits, Spring Breakers dvds, Kanye West cds, rainbow flags, Cohn-Bendit sleaze polemics, and McDonald's Happy Meals.  As for my only complaint regarding Models, I really wish Seidl incorporated the Kraftwerk song “Das Model” into the film.

-Ty E