Ed Lachman on Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise Trilogy

Over the course of his three-decade career in film and TV, Austrian director Ulrich Seidl has polarized audiences with his explorations of transgressive desire and abjection, winning champions among filmmakers such as John Waters. Among his most ambitious works is the Paradise Trilogy—Paradise: Love (2012), Paradise: Faith (2012), and Paradise: Hope (2013)—an unsettling portrait of womanhood on the margins of contemporary European society that follows the stories of a sex tourist, a Catholic proselytizer, and a teenage girl at a weight-loss camp. Recently, the celebrated American cinematographer Ed Lachman, who shot the trilogy with Wolfgang Thaler, sat down with us to discuss his collaboration with Seidl and how the director’s work walks a thin line between cruelty and compassion. Head to the Criterion Channel on FilmStruck to check out Lachman’s full introduction, and make sure to watch all three films before our limited engagement ends on April 12.