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(5 votes, average: 8.20 out of 10)As the exciting adventures of a group of bourgeois hunters in a dense Belgian forest unfold, power and weakness go hand in hand in one of the most primitive experiences of being human.
The pomp and savagery of a Belgian group hunt is exposed in this atmospheric, suspenseful and sometimes ironic piece of direct cinema. WAIDMANNSHEIL‘Hail to the good shooter’ scrutinizes with an icy detachment the rituals of a wily group of bourgeois weekend warriors as they compete to kill deer in a pastoral landscape.
They trespass the wet, silent woods in awe and play a defined game of strategy in which all their resources are summoned up for the capture of their treasured preys.
It is a mystical experience centered around the encounter with wild-life. It is a matter of pride for the man and a matter of life and death for the animal.
Every moment of endurance brings the hunter closer to this decisive act. The adrenaline rushes through his mind. His primeval instincts take control of his body.
Once again he feels like the master of all creatures.
Thanks to a man-made decorum of ritual gestures and ceremonies, the act of killing stands out as a paradoxical way of celebrating life.
But often it appears that power and weakness go hand in hand in this most primitive experience of being human.
They trespass the wet, silent woods in awe and play a defined game of strategy in which all their resources are summoned up for the capture of their treasured preys.
It is a mystical experience centered around the encounter with wild-life. It is a matter of pride for the man and a matter of life and death for the animal.
Every moment of endurance brings the hunter closer to this decisive act. The adrenaline rushes through his mind. His primeval instincts take control of his body.
Once again he feels like the master of all creatures.
Thanks to a man-made decorum of ritual gestures and ceremonies, the act of killing stands out as a paradoxical way of celebrating life.
But often it appears that power and weakness go hand in hand in this most primitive experience of being human.
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