Im Wiener Prater

Directed by Friedl vom Gröller

Im Wiener Prater is not about the amusement park that one normally associates with this name. The spectacle in the film takes place in a much more basic sense. Right at the start, we see a camera tripod left standing, and instead, the filmmaker has set off to track down a woman (artist Martina L.). Carefully, concealed—with a thoroughly male-coded gaze—she approaches the unsuspecting woman who is out taking a walk. What we are then shown, a close-up of a woman urinating, activates a quasi-childish delight in investigating taboos: Evident here are both a conscious reference to Viennese Actionism and the counterpart to one of Gröller´s early films, Boston Steamer (2009) about the process of anal excretion. Yet rather than the close-ups of anatomical details and the associated sexualization, what is actually `unsettling´ about Im Wiener Prater is the gaze forced upon the viewer: this woman looks at us, questioning and self-confidently—now that´s pure cinema of attraction.