The Most Beautiful Country in the World
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December 2016, a rally in front of the parliament in Vienna. Two men start talking to each other at the edge of the crowd - about the destruction of Aleppo, the Taliban, the few supporters of war whose claim to truth is violently enforced against the lives of the many uninvolved. The brief exchange is marked by interest and understanding. At first glance, it seems as if fiction is being filmed here, so cleanly are the two men put into the picture, the dialogue flawlessly audible, shot/counter-shot pleasantly rhythmic. The aesthetic of Želimir Žilnik's The Most Beautiful Country in the World feeds on this principle. People whose lives in this or previous generations did not begin in Austria appear before the camera in this country. They act out drastic experiences as well as scenes of everyday life - whereby this everyday life includes the need to find one's way in a country that is still unfamiliar as well as a routine that is already indebted to local life contexts. Documentary film is played here with the aim of tying desire and reality together. This approach creates several times the foreboding of a catastrophe, promises doom. But the self-determined approach of the protagonists, a refreshing pragmatism and the fine wit that permeates the film are what, in the final moments, set the sail on the course of happy outcomes.