As part of the 2006 Mozart Year, 28 Austrian filmmakers, including Ulrich Seidl, were commissioned to create a minute-long film featuring Mozart's music. Seidl decided on the slaves' chorus from Zaide: "Brothers, let us be merry and bravely defy adversity" rings out while two dimly-lit men give themselves over to purposeless pleasure. They masturbate mechanically and monotonously. Paper towels stand ready next to them, as if waiting for consummation, the climax. Nietzsche claimed that all pleasure seeks to be eternal; Brothers, Let Us Be Merry depicts the hangover left by this unfulfilled utopia.
Austria 2006 | 1 min | German | Super 16mm | 35mm blow up | 1:1.66
Director: Ulrich Seidl | Collaboration: Wolfgang Thaler, Ekkehart Baumung, Markus Davy, Veronika Franz, Heinz Hartel, Max Linder, Andrea Wagner
Production company: Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion GmbH | Wasserburgergasse 5/7 | 1090 Vienna, Austria
T +43 1 3102824 | F +43 1 31956 - 64 | E office@ulrichseidl.com | www.ulrichseidl.com
Financed with funds from the City of Vienna's Vienna Mozart Year
"Two men pleasure themselves to the slaves' aria from Mozart's Zaide in the way you pleasure yourself when you are supposed to get in the mood and have fun on command." – Ulrich Seidl
Pressphotos: 10x17cm / 300dpi / jpg / 800kb
© Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion
