Showing @ Filmouse, Edinburgh, Fri 26 Jul – Sun 28 Jul

Ulrich Seidl / Austria/Germany/France / 2012 / 120 min

Most people might associate the phrase “sex tourism” with wealthy older men travelling to the Far East to cater to particular (and often illegal) tastes, but this first film in Ulrich Seidl’s recent Paradise trilogy explores a more ambiguous and socially acceptable, yet hardly less repugnant, form of cultural exploitation.

Teresa and her friends are middle-aged Austrian divorcees on holiday at a plush Kenyan resort. But outwith the hotel gates wait swarms of persistent and pretty local men more than willing to be players in the women’s sexual fantasies. However as these affairs progress, the power dynamic shifts back and forth until it is entirely unclear who is in control or whether anyone’s motives are pure.

Margarete Tiesel’s Teresa is a largely unsympathetic, self-pitying and distasteful character and the non-professionals who play the local men are, sadly, also entirely credible in their roles. It all paints a rather tragic picture of the seedy underbelly of “paradise”. This is deeply uncomfortable viewing and raises vital questions about the lengths people will go to when they are desperate for either love or money.