Vista mare—“sea view”; it’s a phrase almost as resonant as la dolce vita. For most people, it evokes the lazy pleasures of a summer vacation on the Italian coast. But Julia Gutweniger and Florian Kofler shift the perspective, revealing another reality that is usually kept invisible—or rather hidden in plain sight.

The film spans a full tourist season on Italy’s northern Adriatic, from the moment bulldozers arrive to refill the eroded beaches with sand, to the umbrellas and deckchairs packed up again for the winter; as such, VISTA MARE could almost serve as a non-fiction complement to Ulrich Seidl’s RIMINI, whose narrative takes place during the remaining months of the year. In a montage of mostly static, meticulously composed shots, we observe the myriad forms of labour that sustain the holidaymakers’ R & R: life guards keep a lookout, housekeeping staff clean rooms and kitchen staff prepare meals, a fitness instructor leads a class, a hawker haggles with sunbathers. Eschewing both sentimentalism and caricature, the filmmakers gradually compose a portrait of an immense, well-oiled human machinery whose surrealism is all the more affecting for being treated as self-evident. (Giovanni Marchini Camia)

Austria, 2024, 80min, German, Italian with English subtitles, directed by Julia Gutweniger and Florian Kofler.