Veni Vidi Vici (2024 | Austria | 86 minutes Daniel Hoesl and Julia Niemann)
Opening with an Ayn Rand quote, Daniel Hoesl and Julia Niemann’s family portrait of ultra-rich Austrian Psychos who quite literally get away with murder is almost too severe to be considered satire. Set in a stark mansion with enviable views in the countryside, the interior design shaped by crisp bright minimalism is a prime stage for making luxuries pop. They have a lap pool next to a couch in their living room, wear head-to-toe Balenciaga, and host outrageously decadent children’s birthday parties that fill the place with giant balloons and face-painted guests. Every need is attended to by a dedicated butler, including seemingly disposable getaway vehicles.
The chronicle of their lawless wealth is a satire in which the humor is bone dry. Tasked with playing archetypes rather than characters, one can sense the cast having some fun with the send-up. Laurence Rupp plays the young patriarch — as a billionaire “disruptor” — with incredulous zeal for his family and an incredulity of how he’s managed to commit crimes in plain sight. Olivia Goschler inhabits the role of his daughter with the knowing disaffection of a teen heiress and observant protégée who has it all but naturally wants more. Told in three acts, the family’s trespasses against society range from simple shoplifting to political manipulations with a crime spree of actual murders thrown in for good measure.
Yes, hard to describe it as a twist when it’s revealed in the opening minutes, but indeed the semi-farcical idea of the film is that dear old dad finds relaxation by wandering the grounds of his estate and public parks picking off random civilians for sport. Like their compassion for their fellow man, the violence is swift and held at a distance. In between acts of too-cold-to-be-callous sniping, we see commoners around the family start to lose their mind at the lack of action by local authorities. A journalist tries to make something of a stir, but his story falls on ears made deaf by money before he himself is swept into their dark orbit. There’s a plot line about selecting a surrogate womb from a catalogue that takes a lazy turn from the sympathetic and a commentary about guns slipped in along the way.
As far as ideas go, the proposition that unchecked wealth is killing us all, at will, without rhyme or reason is hardly unique. But here, rather than a polemic, is a serial murder story told with a level of impunity that is absurd even to the perpetrators.
Veni Vidi Vici played as an official selection of the World Dramatic Competition; available online during the second half of the festival.
Photo by (c) Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.