rstout3526 Austria is my least favourite European country and this film sums it up a treat. Like Germany or Holland without the humour factor. This is Ulrich Seidl's best film to date. Self parody, like a lot of Austrian cinema, such as Import/Export and most of Michael Haneke's output. Brilliant film-making. An experimental documentary-style study of depressed characters in a depressing suburb in Austria during a summer heatwave. A thought-provoking film and its conclusions are pretty damning on the whole. But not for everyones viewing. There is no plot and therefore the viewer is forced to continue to watch the six character stories or observations in order to see the point of it all. Rather slow-paced, it deals with everyday life's madness. A collection of 6 parallel stories - more like incidents from the most miserable people'e everyday life. It shows people humiliating other people and being cruel to other people. It shows the inability of people to communicate or talk with others. It is also one of those films that you have to watch again and again just in case you missed something. Hundstage is an intentionally ugly study of life in a dreary suburb of Vienna. I could be based in any other tidy and organised Austrian city. As observational cinema it is a little gem - and very challenging.So much better than the standard Hollywood carp we are all fed these days.

prempremprem-1 It is often said that the purpose of all art is to at as a mirror to life in ways that common observation cannot. In Dog Days, one finds that mirror shedding some brutal, uncompromising and deeply disturbing light on modern day life.At the core of the film is a deep sense of loneliness. Seen through the lives of its characters, the film begins with an over-possessive boyfriend and his abusive relationship with his girlfriend.The opening scenes of the film quickly set the tone for the rest of the film. The brawl in the strip-club and the highly disturbing scene of physical abuse in the car leave you in no doubt that this not a film will be apologetic or polite.The rest of the film does not disappoint on this count. There is the old widower whose only companion, his pet dog, is poisoned. The mentally unbalanced hitchhiker who meets with some rather tragic consequences. The security equipment salesman who spends endless hours trying to sell his wares, with little success. The estranged couple that lives under the same roof, mourning the death of their little daughter but refusing to speak with each other. And finally, and possibly the most unhinging of all, the aging woman and her inexplicable love for her sadistic, violent and abusive man.The film offers little in terms of relief from the dark and disturbing lives of its characters. Often described as highly pessimistic, the film chooses to focus on the extremities to make a larger point about the isolation of modern urban life and the redemption we seek from it.Highly realistic and engrossing, this a truly gifted piece of film making from, astonishingly, a débutant film-maker.

borkoboardo Being an Austrian myself this has been a straight knock in my face. This movie tells a story about how misled people who suffer from lack of education or bad company try to survive and live in a world of redundancy and boring horizons. A girl who is treated like a whore by her super-jealous boyfriend (and still keeps coming back), a female teacher who discovers her masochism by putting the life of her super-cruel "lover" on the line, an old couple who has an almost mathematical daily cycle (she is the "official replacement" of his ex wife), a couple that has just divorced and has the ex husband suffer under the acts of his former wife obviously having a relationship with her masseuse and finally a crazy hitchhiker who asks her drivers the most unusual questions and stretches their nerves by just being super-annoying.After having seen it you feel almost nothing. You're not even shocked, sad, depressed or feel like doing anything... Maybe that's why I gave it 7 points, it made me react in a way I never reacted before. If that's good or bad is up to you!

Dr. Floyd I agree with the previous comment in naming the film's content "everyday madness" but would like to specify that: "Dog Days" is about how women are treated in (a male) society. The episodes we get to see here show some variation in everyday discrimination of women, mostly categorized by age group. There is a senior man who makes his new partner look and act the way his late wife had, treating her like a doll that shall act "worthy of wearing" the former's dress. There is a middle-aged couple in whose relationship she is nearly a slave and he a (violent) master. Further we find a somewhat younger man who does not communicate with his friend/wife and instead of being really jealous about her affairs even makes friendship with his competitor(s). A young adult man makes clear to his friend - a girl who is really troubled by being pretty enough for him - that she has to be the jewelry at his side and to follow his narrow viewed rules of etiquette. Finally there is a man in his late fifties who calculating his own advantage delivers a simple-minded hitchhiking woman to a furious client who - taking her for guilty in having scratched his car - natural beats her up. To complete the examples we find the pal of the man in the "master-slave"-couple - after collectively abusing her - threatening and humiliating the former "in her sake" for she shall get rid of her partner and take himself as her new "master". During all this the inhabitants of the lately built neighborhood in which the action takes place rests under the burning summer-sun - absolutely motionless (sic!). Unfortunately I have not seen the last minutes of this shocking and authentic portray of the archaic structures that still reign in the relationship between women and men, but what I have seen convincingly analyzed the repertoire of discrimination. Probably a helpful tool in teaching even the less sensitive spectator what goes wrong - due to good visualization.