Seidl once said that he wasn’t interested in ‘life’s few happy moments’ and went on to contrast his approach to that of a wedding photographer. He’s no mere glamour photographer either, as this searing portrait of four Austrian models testifies with considerable force and insight. From the opening sequence in which two models snort coke in the back of a taxi, to typically forthright shots of them retching into toilet bowls and getting felt-up by seedy photographers, it may appear that this world of overindulgence, addiction and exploitation might prove too easy a target for the director. Not so, however, and Models’ second half contains some of Seidl’s strongest work. Particularly impressive is the way the film posits its characters’ quest for love and their destructive patterns of behaviour as symptomatic of wider contemporary experience. Seidl’s always adventurous visual approach also takes an inspired turn here as he uses the camera as a kind of mirror through which we view his protagonists.