Whereas Ulrich Seidl in "Hundstage", his first non-documentary film took the hottest days of the year for the description of apathy, brutality and humiliation in society, his new film takes place in a cold scenery. And that in a double sense: While in the East (mostly in the Ukraine) there is a deep winterly climate, in the West (Vienna) the relations and the social environment are characterized by coldness.Seidl's films have always been controversial because of the docu-like unrelenting gaze of their pictures,which abstain from any commentary and because of their description of social milieus and phenomenons one usually does not perceive or doesn't want to.All that applies also to "Import Export".Here we find scenes of grotesque disgust, in which the spectator is ashamed of watching and blaming the camera for its rigidity.On the other hand these films create some kind of maelstrom,which is difficult to escape from.There always is the question:Does he exploits his protagonists or not.Well, everyone has to find his own answer: I don't think so because showing the situation does not mean its denunciation.The story depicts in two unrelated strands two diametrical movements: From East to West and vice versa.The title already refers to the films main subject:The goods-like character,which the globalized capitalistic world imposes on the people.The society is in a desperate state ; nevertheless it is Seidl's most human film.He seems to show empathy for his two protagonists and even if there is no sort of Happy-End - the film has no real end at all,but just leaves its figures alone- the hope remains,that they have got a little bit of strength and decisiveness,which could make a more self-defined life in the future possible.Or maybe not.Every Film of Seidl makes you leave the cinema thinking,that the whole world and the people are in a desperate and hopeless state,but here we have at least little moments of tenderness,in which we see people fighting for their dignity.A rigorous film for the lovers of contemporary austrian film(Albert, Glawogger,Haneke) and definitely no "entertainement".
28 Reviews
A Film That Should Elicit A Response From The Viewer
scandojazzbuff2 November 2007
No matter what you think about a film like Import/Export, you have to have some kind of reaction to it. It is an unsettling, bleak look at a couple of lives that the viewer will rarely think about unless confronted with in a film like this. The story takes place in both Ukraine and in Austria and focuses on 2 lives of very different people who share a similar circumstance of being at the end of the line in the place that they live in. Both seek change and their circumstances take very different shapes and fates but share a similar intention, to find a better life.
The director and writer give us little hope in their depiction of these 2 lives and how their environments constantly conspire to either keep them down or challenge their will to survive and change. It is a story at once about Eastern Europe and a story about the world's 'lower classes' and their monumental struggle against inertia and their past. It is a movie filled with images, humor, highs and lows, and, graphic scenes of sexual play that all add to the base quality of the human experience that exists not only in Eastern Europe, but, many place in the world today. Human beings have created incredible technology and yet there is still so much ignorance, cruelty, and, general meanness in the world. A rough film told with a keen eye toward a subtle message.
The director and writer give us little hope in their depiction of these 2 lives and how their environments constantly conspire to either keep them down or challenge their will to survive and change. It is a story at once about Eastern Europe and a story about the world's 'lower classes' and their monumental struggle against inertia and their past. It is a movie filled with images, humor, highs and lows, and, graphic scenes of sexual play that all add to the base quality of the human experience that exists not only in Eastern Europe, but, many place in the world today. Human beings have created incredible technology and yet there is still so much ignorance, cruelty, and, general meanness in the world. A rough film told with a keen eye toward a subtle message.
Bring the patience and you shall be rewarded
Horst_In_Translation13 April 2015
Warning: Spoilers
This is a statement which may apply to the two central characters in this movie, but it also fits audiences. This film here runs for almost 2.5 hours and is another work from director/writer Ulrich Seidl together with his wife. Back when this came out 8 years ago, he was among Austria's most known filmmakers and today he probably is even more, also thanks to his Paradise trilogy. One interesting thing about "Import/Export" is that most of the actors were absolutely new to the acting industry and same goes for the two central actors. Hofmann had a couple more performances afterward, but not a whole lot and for Rak this is still the only credit to this day. Maybe this is also why many of the characters and their dialogs seem so authentic as this is the only role they have ever prepared themselves for. Pretty good writing here and also excellent line delivery for the most part. I am not surprised this film got a nomination at Cannes.
The story centers around an Austrian security employee who travels East and a Ukrainian nurse / cleaning lady who travels the exact different direction. At one point they meet and the story is connected. We watch their struggles, mostly professional, but also occasionally involving their privates lives. There is some Austrian dialect in this film, but you can understand it if you are a native German speaker. It is not that heavy. This film is basically about life going on. Most of the time it is very slow, but occasionally significant events happen. Seidl uses static camera frequently, so we feel as if we are in the room with the main characters watching them. There's some obscenity and nudity and, in one scene, a woman gets mistreated and pulled on her hair, just like a dog, so it's not always easy to watch and probably not a movie for feminists. But it's very raw and realistic and I do not have any major criticisms. A minor one would be that I do not like the main poster that much. It's a bit attention seeking with the top half and as the bottom half belongs to the female plot as well, I believe they should have split it into one for the guy, one for the girl. But this does not have to do directly with the film either, so I certainly recommend watching this.
The story centers around an Austrian security employee who travels East and a Ukrainian nurse / cleaning lady who travels the exact different direction. At one point they meet and the story is connected. We watch their struggles, mostly professional, but also occasionally involving their privates lives. There is some Austrian dialect in this film, but you can understand it if you are a native German speaker. It is not that heavy. This film is basically about life going on. Most of the time it is very slow, but occasionally significant events happen. Seidl uses static camera frequently, so we feel as if we are in the room with the main characters watching them. There's some obscenity and nudity and, in one scene, a woman gets mistreated and pulled on her hair, just like a dog, so it's not always easy to watch and probably not a movie for feminists. But it's very raw and realistic and I do not have any major criticisms. A minor one would be that I do not like the main poster that much. It's a bit attention seeking with the top half and as the bottom half belongs to the female plot as well, I believe they should have split it into one for the guy, one for the girl. But this does not have to do directly with the film either, so I certainly recommend watching this.
Life without home
paul2001sw-120 October 2009
Many film's about sad, boring lives are themselves boring (and not truly sad). Not so Ulrich Siedl's remarkable 'Import/Export', which tells a simple, and fundamentally depressing, story at great length, but with compelling naturalism. Not only that, but Siedl shows an uncanny ability to find interesting shots: the film has a haunting quality, and in every scene there's something that draws the viewer's attention and makes one think. The plot, such as it is, tells the story of two people, a Ukranian woman to emigrates to Austria in search of a better life, and an Austrian man who ends up in Ukraine; in Hollywood, their stories would inevitably be drawn together, but Siedl keeps them in parallel throughout. One link is that both are involved (at different ends) in the Ukranian sex industry, and Siedl's uncompromising depiction of this attracted some notoriety for this movie; but it's a long way from a titillating film.
The acting is excellent, and the way the characters evolve is fascinating. Ekatarina Rak's Olga is allowed to inch slowly towards a better life in Austria, albeit at a high price. Paul Hofmann's Pauli is even more interesting, a loner and misfit denied the chance by his environment to become a good person; disaffected from his present life, he can find no route map to another one. Not only do the two stories not converge, but one ends with a lengthy series of hospital scenes in which the origin of the central character is of decreasing importance; this could be a film about lonely people anywhere. Indeed, for all the film's "naturalism", it's depiction of social reality might perhaps be questioned, I would have guessed this movie was set in 1997 rather than 10 years later (although my own estimate of reality is based on the newspapers, so it may well be this that is wrong). Certainly the film is not an explicit political indictment. But it is a sympathetic and original insight into existential loneliness and the harshness of life in the modern world.
The acting is excellent, and the way the characters evolve is fascinating. Ekatarina Rak's Olga is allowed to inch slowly towards a better life in Austria, albeit at a high price. Paul Hofmann's Pauli is even more interesting, a loner and misfit denied the chance by his environment to become a good person; disaffected from his present life, he can find no route map to another one. Not only do the two stories not converge, but one ends with a lengthy series of hospital scenes in which the origin of the central character is of decreasing importance; this could be a film about lonely people anywhere. Indeed, for all the film's "naturalism", it's depiction of social reality might perhaps be questioned, I would have guessed this movie was set in 1997 rather than 10 years later (although my own estimate of reality is based on the newspapers, so it may well be this that is wrong). Certainly the film is not an explicit political indictment. But it is a sympathetic and original insight into existential loneliness and the harshness of life in the modern world.
Is the grass always greener on the other side?
Galina_movie_fan13 November 2011
Warning: Spoilers
One of the most depressing, unsettling and bleakest movies I have seen in a long time, 135 minutes long Import/Export 2007, written/directed by Ulrich Seidl is gloomy, dark, and disturbing film. It feels like a documentary, and the winter landscapes in both parts of Europe, Eastern (Ukraine) and Western (Vienna, Austria) look and feel equally un- inviting and mean. Who would think that beautiful out of the fairy tale Vienna could be shot so un-appealing but I guess the nursing places for the ill and old patients are not the most cheerful places anywhere in the world, and they only add to the overall feeling of pessimism, degradation, lack of hope or anything uplifting in the existence of two main characters who never met because their lives moved in the parallel directions, and every character they come across.
Ulrich Seidl excels in giving Import/Export feel of a documentary and in showing how advanced the humans are in corrupting and humiliating one another. I think this film takes a prize for the amount of the un- sexy, most unpleasant and longest X-rated scenes ever filmed. I guess if sex is not accompanied with love, desire or at least, lust, it is very boring and uncomfortable to watch and makes a viewer guilty for the degradation they are forced to watch and makes them want to stop or fast-forward these scenes as fast as possible. If that what Ulrich Seidle intentions were - he succeeded fully. Let me put it this way - Import/Export is a well-made move. It made me think of the serious matters - for instance, how high is the price of freedom to look for and to find a better life, to support yourself and your family, to be able to go to any country you chose and to succeed there. I did not see a single false note in any performance given mostly by the non- professionals. Import/Export achieves what it was set to do but I would never watch it again. I got the point(s) and I don't think that it is for multiple viewings.
Ulrich Seidl excels in giving Import/Export feel of a documentary and in showing how advanced the humans are in corrupting and humiliating one another. I think this film takes a prize for the amount of the un- sexy, most unpleasant and longest X-rated scenes ever filmed. I guess if sex is not accompanied with love, desire or at least, lust, it is very boring and uncomfortable to watch and makes a viewer guilty for the degradation they are forced to watch and makes them want to stop or fast-forward these scenes as fast as possible. If that what Ulrich Seidle intentions were - he succeeded fully. Let me put it this way - Import/Export is a well-made move. It made me think of the serious matters - for instance, how high is the price of freedom to look for and to find a better life, to support yourself and your family, to be able to go to any country you chose and to succeed there. I did not see a single false note in any performance given mostly by the non- professionals. Import/Export achieves what it was set to do but I would never watch it again. I got the point(s) and I don't think that it is for multiple viewings.
Death and Money
steve-tiller111 October 2008
Warning: Spoilers
I saw this movie in London on a Friday night in October at a point when the world's finances were in meltdown and the FTSE had lost 9% of its value in one day. So what? So everything... This film couldn't have been more apposite; Import Export is all about capitalism - and cash. Having it. Not having it. And the humiliations most people must undergo just to stay afloat.
And, as it turns out in this movie, the real heroes of the piece are the 'losers' West and East, but particularly the latter; losers who may have few chips to bet in capitalism's little crap game, but ones who haven't yet forgotten their humanity.
In particular Olga, the Ukrainian nurse who travels to the West only to absorb one humiliation after another. In a series of beautiful scenes in the Geriatric hospital in Vienna where she now works as a cleaner - we see her variously comb the hair of a demented inmate before a nurse tell her it's against the rules, plug in a phone and sing a lullaby to her baby a thousand miles to the East, dance tenderly with a dying patient in a basement storeroom and later go to the 'Exitus' to make a last vigil over his body, a moment of almost religious intensity...
Interwoven with her story, is that of Pauli who makes the journey in the opposite direction, ending up in the Ukraine with his debased and alcoholic step-father, a pathetic and impotent racist whose behaviour reminded me strongly of the SS invaders in the climactic scene of Elim Klimov's Come and See. A man whose debasement is a cypher for the moral emptiness of the West. For money, he gets a prostitute, naked from the waist down, to crawl round on her hands and knees while telling her to repeat, in German, a language she doesn't understand, that she's a 'stupid f**king c**t'.
The power of money. The only thing he understands...
Pauli finally tries to 'defect' to the East. But even there the system is now dog eat dog so he leaves his step-father and begins to hitch-hike back. Meanwhile, at the hospital, the cleaners, ladies from the East all, sit in their overalls around a dinner table and share a joke. And laugh and laugh and laugh.
Their spirit is not dead. It's the real power of the downtrodden. Everywhere.
And, as it turns out in this movie, the real heroes of the piece are the 'losers' West and East, but particularly the latter; losers who may have few chips to bet in capitalism's little crap game, but ones who haven't yet forgotten their humanity.
In particular Olga, the Ukrainian nurse who travels to the West only to absorb one humiliation after another. In a series of beautiful scenes in the Geriatric hospital in Vienna where she now works as a cleaner - we see her variously comb the hair of a demented inmate before a nurse tell her it's against the rules, plug in a phone and sing a lullaby to her baby a thousand miles to the East, dance tenderly with a dying patient in a basement storeroom and later go to the 'Exitus' to make a last vigil over his body, a moment of almost religious intensity...
Interwoven with her story, is that of Pauli who makes the journey in the opposite direction, ending up in the Ukraine with his debased and alcoholic step-father, a pathetic and impotent racist whose behaviour reminded me strongly of the SS invaders in the climactic scene of Elim Klimov's Come and See. A man whose debasement is a cypher for the moral emptiness of the West. For money, he gets a prostitute, naked from the waist down, to crawl round on her hands and knees while telling her to repeat, in German, a language she doesn't understand, that she's a 'stupid f**king c**t'.
The power of money. The only thing he understands...
Pauli finally tries to 'defect' to the East. But even there the system is now dog eat dog so he leaves his step-father and begins to hitch-hike back. Meanwhile, at the hospital, the cleaners, ladies from the East all, sit in their overalls around a dinner table and share a joke. And laugh and laugh and laugh.
Their spirit is not dead. It's the real power of the downtrodden. Everywhere.
Too long for the substance to sustain and too simplistic in its message, characters and narrative
bob the moo12 April 2009
I came to this film when it was mentioned by a fellow IMDb user who occasionally points me towards some European films that I have not seen. More often than not they are fairly bleak affairs but, while Hollywood probably dominates the action genre, Europe tends to be best at films dealing with the bleakness of life. And so it is here in a film that painstakingly depicts the bleakness of the lives of two characters. Olga is a nurse in the Ukraine who travels to the West for a better life and finds herself working in an old people's home as a cleaner. Meanwhile Pauli is a young man in Austria who has little going for him employment-wise and finds himself under the wing of his morally defunct step-father.
It is not a theme that I haven't seen before but here it seems to be the entire film and there is surprisingly little in the way of narrative framework, far less actual narrative flow to it. In itself this maybe isn't a problem because "experience" films can work as well as "start/middle/end" stories – but to go for in excess of two hours without much of a story is a tall order and it is one that this film cannot fill. Without much of a story or characters what results is essentially a wallow in some specific examples of life as survival until death and very little else. This message is perhaps fair enough but it is delivered without much intelligence and comment, just scene after scene laid out. It doesn't even really have any sort of central scenes or direction to it and indeed doesn't even have any "big" moments that one could see as having been built to – although I'm not saying it would have been better by artificially having them.
The cinema vérité style is to be commended because it does convince as a piece of realism (which is why perhaps not having one big "event" is a good thing) but the downside of it is that, like life sometimes, it is pretty dull and doesn't really have much meaning behind it. And this is what I took away from the film because I did find it to be far too long for the loose material to sustain and it did feel like each and every scene had only the same message to deliver and it just kept repeating that long after the audience had gotten it. I guess if you're looking for a film to confirm the drabness of existence then this is it but it must be said that there are films that do it with a lot more meaning and heart than this one.
It is not a theme that I haven't seen before but here it seems to be the entire film and there is surprisingly little in the way of narrative framework, far less actual narrative flow to it. In itself this maybe isn't a problem because "experience" films can work as well as "start/middle/end" stories – but to go for in excess of two hours without much of a story is a tall order and it is one that this film cannot fill. Without much of a story or characters what results is essentially a wallow in some specific examples of life as survival until death and very little else. This message is perhaps fair enough but it is delivered without much intelligence and comment, just scene after scene laid out. It doesn't even really have any sort of central scenes or direction to it and indeed doesn't even have any "big" moments that one could see as having been built to – although I'm not saying it would have been better by artificially having them.
The cinema vérité style is to be commended because it does convince as a piece of realism (which is why perhaps not having one big "event" is a good thing) but the downside of it is that, like life sometimes, it is pretty dull and doesn't really have much meaning behind it. And this is what I took away from the film because I did find it to be far too long for the loose material to sustain and it did feel like each and every scene had only the same message to deliver and it just kept repeating that long after the audience had gotten it. I guess if you're looking for a film to confirm the drabness of existence then this is it but it must be said that there are films that do it with a lot more meaning and heart than this one.
Glimpses of sadness
Imdbidia25 February 2011
Two parallel stories - one about a young Ukrainian immigrant in Austria (Olga), and another about a young Austrian traveling for work reasons in East Europe (Pauli). It is a story of simple people with a dark future and gray unhappy lives. The movie was shot in Austria, Slovakia, Rumania and Ukrania, mostly with non-actors in a documentary sort of style. It has a 1980s sort of visual style, and it has a depressing mood and colors.
The movie, despite being in Cannes official selection, has a sluggish script, poor dialogues and lacks in focus, all factors that rest credibility to the story.
The movie has beautiful and shocking scenes, they won't leave you indifferent for sure. Some of them are so because of their sexual nature, others for their sadness, others because of their tenderness, and others because depict situations that are not easy to see without getting an emotional reaction.
The characters of Pauli, Olga, and Pauli's father are well played by Paul Hofmann, Ekateryna Rak and Michael Thomas, respectively. However, the drawing of the characters lacks in dramatic depth and the viewer resents that. We see them struggling in their lives, but we don't understand why they got to that point, what is their personal background -which is only hinted-, what is troubling their souls. On the other hand, Olga's story is told in a straightforward clear way, but Pauli's story is not, despite his character being, a priori, very interesting and cool.
The story doesn't seem to have any purpose, just to catch glimpses of a sad reality. If that was the director's intention, a documentary would have been more respectful and less pretentious. The end, on the other hand, is also unresolved.
I found that the selection of some Rumanian, Slovakian and Ukrainian depressed areas offers a misleading view of countries that, otherwise, are modern and normal. However, those areas are presented as if they were the real country, i.e. as if all of those countries were like that. Marginal suburbs can be found anywhere in the developed world, not just in those countries.
I'm appalled at the poster of the movie being the one it is, which is utterly misleading. The movie is not about sex, is about life and death, about two different life paths that lead nowhere but in opposite directions.
Nothing new in the horizon and nothing memorable either, but is an interesting movie not easy easy to watch, but engaging nevertheless.
The movie, despite being in Cannes official selection, has a sluggish script, poor dialogues and lacks in focus, all factors that rest credibility to the story.
The movie has beautiful and shocking scenes, they won't leave you indifferent for sure. Some of them are so because of their sexual nature, others for their sadness, others because of their tenderness, and others because depict situations that are not easy to see without getting an emotional reaction.
The characters of Pauli, Olga, and Pauli's father are well played by Paul Hofmann, Ekateryna Rak and Michael Thomas, respectively. However, the drawing of the characters lacks in dramatic depth and the viewer resents that. We see them struggling in their lives, but we don't understand why they got to that point, what is their personal background -which is only hinted-, what is troubling their souls. On the other hand, Olga's story is told in a straightforward clear way, but Pauli's story is not, despite his character being, a priori, very interesting and cool.
The story doesn't seem to have any purpose, just to catch glimpses of a sad reality. If that was the director's intention, a documentary would have been more respectful and less pretentious. The end, on the other hand, is also unresolved.
I found that the selection of some Rumanian, Slovakian and Ukrainian depressed areas offers a misleading view of countries that, otherwise, are modern and normal. However, those areas are presented as if they were the real country, i.e. as if all of those countries were like that. Marginal suburbs can be found anywhere in the developed world, not just in those countries.
I'm appalled at the poster of the movie being the one it is, which is utterly misleading. The movie is not about sex, is about life and death, about two different life paths that lead nowhere but in opposite directions.
Nothing new in the horizon and nothing memorable either, but is an interesting movie not easy easy to watch, but engaging nevertheless.
A great, disturbing film!
slabihoud12 July 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Import/Export is not a film one recommends easily. It is a great film but it is not one to look at casually. The director Ulrich Seidl already has a reputation for drastic dialog and acting in his films. He started with documentaries and this is always apparent in his consequent films. The atmosphere is often unbearably realistic, many of his actors deliver so convincing performances that one thinks they must have been brought in from the street. They are not though. This, combined with simple framing leads to the strong documentary impression.
In this film the focus is on two story lines which move in opposite directions. On starts in the Ukrainia and moves to Vienna, Austria and the other starts in Vienna and ends in Ukrainia. Both show a harsh life with violence and humiliation and sexual exploitation. While viewing this film I often wanted to look away or close my eyes as to protect my soul from the terrible experiences, the two protagonists are facing in very different ways. The moments of violence, humiliation and sexuality, although shorter then in his earlier films, are shown in a very graphic way, and stay in your mind long after the picture is over. Maybe you will never forget them.
In this, the film has some parallels to Lukas Moodysons "Lilja 4-ever" which also makes you forget that it is a work of fiction you are watching. Moodyson concentrates himself completely on the tragic story of the main character's exploitation through the economic system and the resulting criminality in eastern Europe, plus the demand for sex without love in the western world and it"s tragic consequences for your unprotected girls.
Seidl, on the other hand, chooses a young but grown up woman and mother in Ukrainia, a trained nurse, who can't make a living by working in a hospital and is forced to work as a porn model in from of an internet camera. Then she leaves for Vienna to work there in various unpleasant jobs.
In the second storyline Seidl shows a young man from Vienna, trying unsuccessful to hold a job and always on the run from people he borrowed money from. He joins his stepfather on his trip through eastern Europe, delivering game automates and the like. They are both frustrated by their poor outlook of their future, and although they don't like each other, they both concur in spending their money easily on booze and women which they like to intimidate and humiliate.
The film has some rare comic moments, but often scenes open on a funny note but then change fast into something that makes you choke on your own laughter. All in all a great, disturbing film!
In this film the focus is on two story lines which move in opposite directions. On starts in the Ukrainia and moves to Vienna, Austria and the other starts in Vienna and ends in Ukrainia. Both show a harsh life with violence and humiliation and sexual exploitation. While viewing this film I often wanted to look away or close my eyes as to protect my soul from the terrible experiences, the two protagonists are facing in very different ways. The moments of violence, humiliation and sexuality, although shorter then in his earlier films, are shown in a very graphic way, and stay in your mind long after the picture is over. Maybe you will never forget them.
In this, the film has some parallels to Lukas Moodysons "Lilja 4-ever" which also makes you forget that it is a work of fiction you are watching. Moodyson concentrates himself completely on the tragic story of the main character's exploitation through the economic system and the resulting criminality in eastern Europe, plus the demand for sex without love in the western world and it"s tragic consequences for your unprotected girls.
Seidl, on the other hand, chooses a young but grown up woman and mother in Ukrainia, a trained nurse, who can't make a living by working in a hospital and is forced to work as a porn model in from of an internet camera. Then she leaves for Vienna to work there in various unpleasant jobs.
In the second storyline Seidl shows a young man from Vienna, trying unsuccessful to hold a job and always on the run from people he borrowed money from. He joins his stepfather on his trip through eastern Europe, delivering game automates and the like. They are both frustrated by their poor outlook of their future, and although they don't like each other, they both concur in spending their money easily on booze and women which they like to intimidate and humiliate.
The film has some rare comic moments, but often scenes open on a funny note but then change fast into something that makes you choke on your own laughter. All in all a great, disturbing film!
Bleak picture covering two unfortunate souls caught in a world of sleaze and hurt, although eventually coming to test our patients as its core thesis wears thinner.
johnnyboyz28 July 2011
I'm not sure if Austrian film maker Ulrich Seidl makes the best use of the extended study of duality between two seemingly random; seemingly disconnected European people plodding on through their lives as he might'v done, in this, his 2008 film Import/Export. As characters, his two leads are motivated and ultimately somewhat decent folk, particularly when placed up against those they spend the majority of their time with, but folk we feel are stuck in an inescapable world of sleaze; violence and discomfort. They travel their continent looking for incident and such in order to advance their existences, but are mostly always greeted with pain; frustration; antagonism and failure – happenings and the like which, whilst often carrying with them degrees of smut which we rightfully find uncomfortable, stick it in a break it off for good measure. The film is good value for its early part; Seidl's piece probably about thirty or so minutes too long, and where the equal balance between either strand felt in place for the first hour, such a parity vanishes by the time his heroine has reached that of a hospital and the whole things beds down into a near infuriating drama peppered with content we begin to question the need of.
The film follows that of two people, one male and one female; one of whom is Paul (Hofmann), an athletic young Austrian living in an apartment whose spare room is rife with items such as boxing gloves; gym equipment and military webbing, and whose interest in such things extends to the fact he maintains a job in security at a local shopping mall demanding constant athleticism through its rigorous training regime. Olga (Rak), a young Ukrainian woman, works in her drab in-appearance; colourless; snowy homeland as a nurse in a hospital, but grows frustrated at her low wages which causes her to head west. This is in sync with around about the same time Paul decides to go in the opposite direction, specifically towards Slovakia, for various reasons linked to his failed relationship with a girlfriend and problems in owing money to some unscrupulous people.
Principally, the film is about the apparent duality prominent between these two people; how, in spite of gender, nationality and differing backgrounds of living in the nations of Austria and Ukraine respectively, two people can wade through similar, if not identical, mires purely so as to reach similar denouements. Perhaps if they'd somehow bumped into each other in this wacky, mixed up world, they'd have been able to solve some of one another's problems and got along better in life. Their quests in either direction both begin with that of frank, sexualised encounters; encounters of which are humiliating and rely heavily on that of a distinct element of power instigated certain people within. Olga, with her low-pay frustrations, happens across an Internet peep-show job operating out of a lonely disused building, whose offices and such have been converted into small dens in which the girls in-front of the web cameras do whatever it is customers logged on at the other end tell them to. During a night shift at his mall job, Paul prowls the underground car park area and is apprehended by a group of youths; youths whom consequently strip him and instigate a demeaning session of mock-sadomasochism involving the man's security equipment that he had with him in the form of belt and handcuffs.
In owing money to various people, Paul hulks out to the bleak-looking East of the continent with his stepfather on a job delivering beaten-up video arcade games and sweet machines. Olga's situation, again infused with that of money, sees her continue to earn very little when the peep-show job falls through out of an inability to understand the required languages online. We find ourselves leaning towards Paul's strand as things develop; Olga's bedding down into a hospital ward-set groove in which elderly men living their last weeks begin to find our Olga rather attractive seeing the whole thing descend into a series of sequences shot on static, tripod mounted cameras bringing more attention to the craft of the thing than is required, whilst more often than not reminding us of Hungarian filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó's rather unpleasant 2005 film Johanna. Paul's begins to become imbued with a sense of antagonism, as he falls foul of some gypsies en route and then with his stepfather when attitudes in regards to women have them clash; the dragging of Paul into his stepfather's attitudes and lifestyle in regards to women eventually leading to awkward and ill-fated altercations forcing Paul into redistributing his priorities.
There is a sense of frankness about proceedings, and I've little doubt Seidl makes the films he wants to make in spite of the cross-cultural settings and international teams behind the project; a sense of frankness evident in the film's title, a cold and inherently cutoff name balancing two opposites with little more than a cut-and-thrust 'slash' carving the two words and forcing them apart from one another. But we find it difficult to get as excited about the film as we would perhaps like; certainly, the film's sexualised content is disgraceful and constructed in an uneroitc fashion – a character's departure from proceedings as things step up a gear later on in a motel room echoes that of our own mind having already exited the scene. Additionally, cries of sexism on Seidl's behalf ought to fall on deaf ears as Paul is unwillingly dragged through a plethora of flimsy Eastern European girls; the man falling foul of his stepfather's hormonal urges around the same time as Olga herself gets caught off-guard by some of those leering aforementioned elderly men doing very little for the masculine cause in this respect. Therein lies the issue, the sense that these people are precisely the same, and yet light-years apart hammering us on the head again; the film is not without merit, but it is without an awful lot of much else.
The film follows that of two people, one male and one female; one of whom is Paul (Hofmann), an athletic young Austrian living in an apartment whose spare room is rife with items such as boxing gloves; gym equipment and military webbing, and whose interest in such things extends to the fact he maintains a job in security at a local shopping mall demanding constant athleticism through its rigorous training regime. Olga (Rak), a young Ukrainian woman, works in her drab in-appearance; colourless; snowy homeland as a nurse in a hospital, but grows frustrated at her low wages which causes her to head west. This is in sync with around about the same time Paul decides to go in the opposite direction, specifically towards Slovakia, for various reasons linked to his failed relationship with a girlfriend and problems in owing money to some unscrupulous people.
Principally, the film is about the apparent duality prominent between these two people; how, in spite of gender, nationality and differing backgrounds of living in the nations of Austria and Ukraine respectively, two people can wade through similar, if not identical, mires purely so as to reach similar denouements. Perhaps if they'd somehow bumped into each other in this wacky, mixed up world, they'd have been able to solve some of one another's problems and got along better in life. Their quests in either direction both begin with that of frank, sexualised encounters; encounters of which are humiliating and rely heavily on that of a distinct element of power instigated certain people within. Olga, with her low-pay frustrations, happens across an Internet peep-show job operating out of a lonely disused building, whose offices and such have been converted into small dens in which the girls in-front of the web cameras do whatever it is customers logged on at the other end tell them to. During a night shift at his mall job, Paul prowls the underground car park area and is apprehended by a group of youths; youths whom consequently strip him and instigate a demeaning session of mock-sadomasochism involving the man's security equipment that he had with him in the form of belt and handcuffs.
In owing money to various people, Paul hulks out to the bleak-looking East of the continent with his stepfather on a job delivering beaten-up video arcade games and sweet machines. Olga's situation, again infused with that of money, sees her continue to earn very little when the peep-show job falls through out of an inability to understand the required languages online. We find ourselves leaning towards Paul's strand as things develop; Olga's bedding down into a hospital ward-set groove in which elderly men living their last weeks begin to find our Olga rather attractive seeing the whole thing descend into a series of sequences shot on static, tripod mounted cameras bringing more attention to the craft of the thing than is required, whilst more often than not reminding us of Hungarian filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó's rather unpleasant 2005 film Johanna. Paul's begins to become imbued with a sense of antagonism, as he falls foul of some gypsies en route and then with his stepfather when attitudes in regards to women have them clash; the dragging of Paul into his stepfather's attitudes and lifestyle in regards to women eventually leading to awkward and ill-fated altercations forcing Paul into redistributing his priorities.
There is a sense of frankness about proceedings, and I've little doubt Seidl makes the films he wants to make in spite of the cross-cultural settings and international teams behind the project; a sense of frankness evident in the film's title, a cold and inherently cutoff name balancing two opposites with little more than a cut-and-thrust 'slash' carving the two words and forcing them apart from one another. But we find it difficult to get as excited about the film as we would perhaps like; certainly, the film's sexualised content is disgraceful and constructed in an uneroitc fashion – a character's departure from proceedings as things step up a gear later on in a motel room echoes that of our own mind having already exited the scene. Additionally, cries of sexism on Seidl's behalf ought to fall on deaf ears as Paul is unwillingly dragged through a plethora of flimsy Eastern European girls; the man falling foul of his stepfather's hormonal urges around the same time as Olga herself gets caught off-guard by some of those leering aforementioned elderly men doing very little for the masculine cause in this respect. Therein lies the issue, the sense that these people are precisely the same, and yet light-years apart hammering us on the head again; the film is not without merit, but it is without an awful lot of much else.
A nearly fruitless exploration of cruelty and meaninglessness
S-Lanaway2 July 2010
I'm not going to write much here. I am open to dark films (in fact I tend to prefer them). But this was one of the most depressing, frustrating films I have ever seen. Long, long, long cut scenes of depressing or morbid circumstances (such as people suffering in palliative care, very raw). The director establishes the mood and the dynamic between the characters and then stays on the scene, often with minimal dialogue for 4-5 minutes - agonizingly long. This film is not an exploration of existential depression -- this film IS existential depression.
The one 'warm' scene in the film where Olga dances with the old man, felt to me like a brief smile before being sucked down a black hole - which is what this film felt like.
The sole mandate seemed to be to show that life is sh*t and then you die - mission accomplished.
The one 'warm' scene in the film where Olga dances with the old man, felt to me like a brief smile before being sucked down a black hole - which is what this film felt like.
The sole mandate seemed to be to show that life is sh*t and then you die - mission accomplished.
21st century's nonmagical surrealism is on
likedeeler3 November 2007
Warning: Spoilers
I had not heard of the director before I saw the film last night in our small cinema around the corner. My personal favourite in 2007 so far.
Most, if not all, actors are nonprofessionals, delivering spotless performances. This adds to the film's impact and slice-of-life feel while being contrasted by deliberately artificial camera views. There are two story lines that cross but never merge:
Olga, a nurse in a grey Ukrainian city, wants to find something better than her clinic work that just does not pay. She lives in a shabby flat with her mother and leaves behind her little child to go to Vienna, after a short intermezzo in the webcam porn business. In Austria, Olga gets hired as a charlady in well-off people's houses before she ends up working in a geriatric hospital, putting away shitty nappies.
Paul, from Vienna, lives with his mother, too. He starts a job as security guard in a car park and loses it again after a bunch of youngsters get at him in the basement at night, strip and humiliate him. Paul is broke and constantly has to evade his shady creditors. He stupidly provokes losing also his girlfriend and eventually goes to the Ukraine with his mother's sleazy boyfriend to set up bubble gum machines.
The sparse plot is depicted in and around a series of still lifes through which the characters move. The camera changes between hand-held motion and those long, static, almost photographic images. Their often symmetric composition conveys beauty and drabness at the same time. Some scenes are unbelievably hard, others very comical, many are both. Sex, death, hope, humiliation, agony, compassion, the ugly face of capitalism and the grimaces of poverty. Separate rags for loo and bathroom armatures. Absurdity. Futility. It's all there, except deliverance. Breathtaking.
Most, if not all, actors are nonprofessionals, delivering spotless performances. This adds to the film's impact and slice-of-life feel while being contrasted by deliberately artificial camera views. There are two story lines that cross but never merge:
Olga, a nurse in a grey Ukrainian city, wants to find something better than her clinic work that just does not pay. She lives in a shabby flat with her mother and leaves behind her little child to go to Vienna, after a short intermezzo in the webcam porn business. In Austria, Olga gets hired as a charlady in well-off people's houses before she ends up working in a geriatric hospital, putting away shitty nappies.
Paul, from Vienna, lives with his mother, too. He starts a job as security guard in a car park and loses it again after a bunch of youngsters get at him in the basement at night, strip and humiliate him. Paul is broke and constantly has to evade his shady creditors. He stupidly provokes losing also his girlfriend and eventually goes to the Ukraine with his mother's sleazy boyfriend to set up bubble gum machines.
The sparse plot is depicted in and around a series of still lifes through which the characters move. The camera changes between hand-held motion and those long, static, almost photographic images. Their often symmetric composition conveys beauty and drabness at the same time. Some scenes are unbelievably hard, others very comical, many are both. Sex, death, hope, humiliation, agony, compassion, the ugly face of capitalism and the grimaces of poverty. Separate rags for loo and bathroom armatures. Absurdity. Futility. It's all there, except deliverance. Breathtaking.
Long and Pointless
kenjha29 December 2010
A nurse travels from the Ukraine to Vienna in search of employment while a couple of shiftless Austrian men make the reverse trip. The two stories are told in parallel but are not integrated, making it seem like two films spliced together because they happen to have the same settings. The main attraction here is the titillation suggested by the movie's poster, although it's not enough to sustain one's interest. The film moves at a very deliberate pace and, like its characters, wanders aimlessly. The filmmakers are trying to make a point here but it's not clear what that point is. And they take much too long to not make a point. The cinematography is nice.
In our times personal struggles on both sides of the border
arkid778 November 2007
Warning: Spoilers
There have been many films in recent years, particularly European ones themed around what has become clearly one of the most important humanitarian and social issues to haunt the new century; immigration. Naturally a huge complex subject and many films have already touched some of the basic points as to why certain peoples have in the first place emigrated and then the problems they faced in their new world; often very serious ones being horrifically exploited in the hands of others.
Still, I think it would be wrong to conclude that Ulrich Seidl's challenging film is a discourse purely on this. While it does genuinely highlight many vital questions about immigration that I'm sure many people would rather not think about (let alone willingly watch when they go for some light relief in a cinema!), I think that the main purpose of the film is to try to make us understand the actions of to two very different young people, Olga and Pauli, The two characters we spend the entire film following while at the same time provoking us to question our own expectations and assumptions about them and others.
It just so happens that these characters both want to escape their very upsetting realities and even more worrisome futures. Both do this by leaving their home lands. Olga leaves Ukraine for Austria, and Pauli goes in the opposite direction.
Both characters never interact with each other or cross each others paths thank goodness, it would be a very worn cliché if they had. Instead we are left at the end of this provoking film with many unanswered questions about the actions we have witnessed, what drives them and where are they going.
The film is incredibly refreshing for its lack of clichés I felt. At many points Seidl sets up our expectations using quite classical narrative techniques and in almost every case, what we think is about to occur doesn't. The paths both take are incredibly believable, helped enormously by the use of non actors throughout the entire film. It's really hard to forget your watching something that has been constructed when it features so many unnerving scenes of real people that are clearly not acting, just "playing" themselves. Both characters, especially Pauli is quite different from the 1st impressions we are given and its incredibly refreshing and sometimes relieving that our worst fears or own clichés about who these people may be are proved to be wrong.
The only obvious cliché I found was Pauli's disgusting step father Michael. I felt this made an important point in itself, to counter the often very negative news stories people in many western 1st world countries are fed about immigrants. In this film, a film by a developed 1st world European nation, the most unsympathetic low character is from said 1st world country - the land of the film maker himself! - the characters actions while he is aware are an important turning of the tables, reminding us as to how "we" may be seen or act when abroad.
Although this is left completely open at the rolling credits there is a very subtle positivism that the very compassionate direction and writing leaves us with I found. While anything could happen after the last shot, it seems clear that both now have at least faith; a life to believe in, one worth struggling for.
Still, I think it would be wrong to conclude that Ulrich Seidl's challenging film is a discourse purely on this. While it does genuinely highlight many vital questions about immigration that I'm sure many people would rather not think about (let alone willingly watch when they go for some light relief in a cinema!), I think that the main purpose of the film is to try to make us understand the actions of to two very different young people, Olga and Pauli, The two characters we spend the entire film following while at the same time provoking us to question our own expectations and assumptions about them and others.
It just so happens that these characters both want to escape their very upsetting realities and even more worrisome futures. Both do this by leaving their home lands. Olga leaves Ukraine for Austria, and Pauli goes in the opposite direction.
Both characters never interact with each other or cross each others paths thank goodness, it would be a very worn cliché if they had. Instead we are left at the end of this provoking film with many unanswered questions about the actions we have witnessed, what drives them and where are they going.
The film is incredibly refreshing for its lack of clichés I felt. At many points Seidl sets up our expectations using quite classical narrative techniques and in almost every case, what we think is about to occur doesn't. The paths both take are incredibly believable, helped enormously by the use of non actors throughout the entire film. It's really hard to forget your watching something that has been constructed when it features so many unnerving scenes of real people that are clearly not acting, just "playing" themselves. Both characters, especially Pauli is quite different from the 1st impressions we are given and its incredibly refreshing and sometimes relieving that our worst fears or own clichés about who these people may be are proved to be wrong.
The only obvious cliché I found was Pauli's disgusting step father Michael. I felt this made an important point in itself, to counter the often very negative news stories people in many western 1st world countries are fed about immigrants. In this film, a film by a developed 1st world European nation, the most unsympathetic low character is from said 1st world country - the land of the film maker himself! - the characters actions while he is aware are an important turning of the tables, reminding us as to how "we" may be seen or act when abroad.
Although this is left completely open at the rolling credits there is a very subtle positivism that the very compassionate direction and writing leaves us with I found. While anything could happen after the last shot, it seems clear that both now have at least faith; a life to believe in, one worth struggling for.
Brilliant study on the lives of others.
RatedVforVinny2 January 2019
A fascinating study of the lives of two individuals, heading in opposite directions. one a poor Ukrainian nurse, who seeks a better life in Austria (so she can support her family), only to end up in the most horrid jobs and a young (under-class) Austrian man, who with his seedy step-father goes to sell gum-ball machines in the Ukraine. This is more than just a snap-shot of 'East meets West', being a complex life study, within the social boundaries and desolate landscapes. Set chiefly in Eastern Ukraine and a ghastly geriatric hospital in Austria. Some might find the pace painfully slow but deep down (and in the bleakest part of the planet), the two characters completely seduced this reviewer.
heart-warming and vile
christopher-underwood19 February 2018
By no means a happy film, it is nevertheless, so overwhelmingly well intentioned that it deserves some attention. Fortunately this fairly long (and some say slow) film is very much well worth sticking with. Frighteningly frank and 'in your face' at times, not least in the desperate sequences with the naked Ukrainian girls struggling to put their fingers where their Austrian paymasters are yelling for them to do. It no surprise that people with money will exploit those without but it seems an awful situation that the EU should allow a situation where it is more profitable for a Ukrainian nurse to travel to Austria and act as some house slave. There is not really any formal narrative flow here but we follow the aforementioned nurse going one way and a pair of Barely sane Austrians going the other way to try and sell bubble gum and gaming machines to a people that can obviously not need either. A mix of professional and no-professional actors ensure that this is gritty reality and I have managed to not even mention the incontinence pants in the Austrian geriatric ward. Illuminating, wretched and desperate but also somewhat heart-warming and vile. Good old Germans eh?
Dark Drama!
A1l9i8m616 December 2018
Cold Dogs
writers_reign14 October 2007
Warning: Spoilers
This is a new entry from Ulrich Seidl, the man who inflicted Dog Days on an unsuspecting public a couple of years ago. Nothing changes much in Seidl's world, life's a bitch/dog and then you die. This time around he centres on two no-hopers who never meet which may be just as well. Olga is a trained nurse but in the Ukraine that doesn't buy her even a half-decent lifestyle so she moonlights - Seidl would probably argue she is forced to - as a porn model until deciding to leave both the Ukraine and her infant daughter for Vienna where, natch, she doesn't do much better. Vienna is home to Pauli who is also unable to sustain much of a life most of which is spent avoiding the heavy hitters he owes money to. Eventually he teams up with his stepfather to deliver/peddle sundry items from a van and winds up in the Ukraine.If you know what Seidl's message is let me know and I'll try to give a damn.
Import Export
film_riot6 November 2007
Warning: Spoilers
This is Austrian director Ulrich Seidl's second non-documentary feature film after "Hundstage", but it is still very likely that an attentive audience can see where he is coming from. Seidl's style is a mixture of harsh realism and stylization carried to an extreme. It's hard for me to criticize his films on a good-bad-scale. I just can give an idea of what reactions "Import Export" triggered in me. Olga's way is characterized by constant exploitation in every one of her jobs. Only in the geriatrics home she has a stabile work environment (!), but ironically it's then, that she is supposed to leave the country again. Paul seems rather likable, but also with him you never want to connect too much (in the end you know why, maybe). Like Olga he is a loser of the system and not given the chance for improvement. Neither by his employers, nor by the people he owes money to, nor by his stepfather. Seidl is one of those Austrian filmmakers that actually are a role model for artistic intransigence.
Nothing new and not even disturbing
leprutz13-13 February 2010
OK, people say this movie is disturbing. That might be because it is the only movie of this kind they have seen (so I think). I am already experienced with this genre of semi-reality no storytelling movies, as I call them. The reason I rated this movie just with two is because since the Cannes Film Festival exists we all have seen movies of this type. I mean a plain and more than simple direction that doesn't tell any story but showing us true life in some sort. I, in my opinion, disagree with directors of this kind of movies, like Hanneke sometimes, because they try to get the most out of reality without understanding that a real thing is a plain documentary without any comments. Just by putting a camera somewhere you are already implying your point of view. There for subjective and not objective. Anyway, as I am to experienced with this type of movies I can't understand why they keep having success. there's nothing in a movie like this. You do it once or twice OK. But tell me a story now and then. Don't just grab a whole team to film something that almost everybody can do. No credit from my side. I must say that bullshit movies like Die Hard 4.0 is almost better then this and I thought it was one of the worst movies ever.
so good, it gets better with time.
sirako25 August 2015
I've seen this movie 4 times, and each one of them it gets better.
The movie is just simple and great taken photographs connecting 2 stories that are actually disconnected but because of the fact that they travel in different directions.
But it is the story of 2 people who are evolving, growing and also failing, fearing, etc. And those 2 people are the perfect pretext to know about other people who are mostly demons ruined because of society.
If you are in the mood for one of the best stories told with minimum resources, but beautifully placed, used, and a profound message of humanity, this is the movie you are looking for.
The movie is just simple and great taken photographs connecting 2 stories that are actually disconnected but because of the fact that they travel in different directions.
But it is the story of 2 people who are evolving, growing and also failing, fearing, etc. And those 2 people are the perfect pretext to know about other people who are mostly demons ruined because of society.
If you are in the mood for one of the best stories told with minimum resources, but beautifully placed, used, and a profound message of humanity, this is the movie you are looking for.
A Masterpiece
jromanbaker30 July 2020
Ulrich Seidl has been an unknown director to me until now. Viewing ' Import Export ' was quite a revelation, and after viewing it twice in one day I consider it to be a masterpiece. It is unsparing in what it shows, and although it is several years old now I feel it is relevant as a portrait of the early years of our new century. It is tough to watch, and shows two young people, a woman and a man who never meet, each going in opposite directions to each other. The woman travels from the Ukraine to the West and the man from the West to the East. Their journeys which are motivated by a need for money are gruelling. Both of them are decent people, and the experiences they endure are gruelling. I do not want to give away spoilers, but the viewer has to witness cruelty towards the elderly as well as sadistic treatment towards women who sell their bodies for money. Seidl effortlessly goes from one story to another in their pitiful lives and shows how two basically innocent people are both insulted and injured in the countries they discover, as well as recalling the dead end lives they have left behind. There is no overlaying of music to manipulate the audience. and the camera is unflinching it what it shows. At times it made me think of Pasolini's ' Salo ' in its depiction of human cruelty, but in many ways it is less sensationalist although equally unsparing. Instead of an enclosed space of emotional and physical distress we see landscapes of utter desolation and when enclosed abuse beyond endurance. Moments of beauty emerge, only to disappear all too briefly, and one of them is when the young woman sings a lullaby to her child on the telephone. This scene of profound love shows that all is not lost, despite the fact that she is in the West and the child is in the East and that they may never see each other again. The acting is flawless throughout and I cannot recommend it highly enough. I urge viewers to seek it out.
Be Prepared
jromanbaker29 July 2020
I was not prepared for this film. I feel I have little to add that other reviewers have not already written. Just a few observations. Two young people needing money leave their countries: one, a woman from the former Soviet Union, the second a man from the West. Their two journeys melt into one although they never meet. Through their eyes we see the full horror of life around them. Pivotal scenes are the young man's experience of a wasted concrete landscape unfit for habitation, but is full of those enduring dire deprivation, and for the young woman her employment in a rich country which utterly degrades the poor. East and West is portrayed as being a hell on earth with death as the final escape. There is no music on the soundtrack except for what is used by those in their specific scenes. No manipulation used at all. The vision of the world we all live in ( the rich of course artificially protecting themselves ) is worthy of Samuel Beckett. Endgame totally. I believe the film to be a masterpiece - again that overused word, but I unreservedly use it. It is expertly filmed and directed with a fierce force seldom seen in film. The one thing that I object to is the poster image which seems to me a deliberate come on for the prurient. Sex and violence is in the pitiful lives portrayed but it pales before the real content of the film. which is the sadistic way humanity drains all hope out of the poor and vulnerable. Many people watching this should feel utter horror and perhaps some will examine their own consciences. Be prepared. For many years I was put off by the poster. 2007 is a while back. Life has not changed, but utterly changed by Covid-19. Hell on earth has taken a further step down. It is the most terrible thought of all!!!
A wasted opportunity.
zebu-340-25909610 April 2012
I saw this on TV and it was prefaced by a short interview with the director / co-writer. His aim was to show raw reality and if that meant some sequences bordered on the over extended then so be it. The longer your nose was rubbed in it (my words not his) the better you would learn the truth. Trouble is everything seemed over extended so the technique lost its impact.
Nothing in the film offended me as such, certainly not the graphic nudity of the sex-for-money scenes which were part of the films core - human exploitation, who is most degraded by it and how do you get out from under it.
In his intro the director repeatedly stated that the truth does no need to be embellished. However I felt that philosophy was an after the fact justification of a film which seemed badly wanting in terms of editorial input and basic direction.
Most scenes were in medium shot using a single camera. Maybe that's all he had. For me that single technique used in such a long film ended up distancing me from the characters. It created a peep show feel where what was promised were insights.
Although I never lost sympathy and concern for the plight of the Ukrainian nurse and some of her charges I ended not caring about almost everyone else - largely because of the 'distancing' camera work.
Many viewers already know that some people with a little money / power can be complete bastards to people with neither and desperate for either. It doesn't take over 2 hours to sell that message.
Watch it on DVD - have your thumb hovering over fast forward.
Nothing in the film offended me as such, certainly not the graphic nudity of the sex-for-money scenes which were part of the films core - human exploitation, who is most degraded by it and how do you get out from under it.
In his intro the director repeatedly stated that the truth does no need to be embellished. However I felt that philosophy was an after the fact justification of a film which seemed badly wanting in terms of editorial input and basic direction.
Most scenes were in medium shot using a single camera. Maybe that's all he had. For me that single technique used in such a long film ended up distancing me from the characters. It created a peep show feel where what was promised were insights.
Although I never lost sympathy and concern for the plight of the Ukrainian nurse and some of her charges I ended not caring about almost everyone else - largely because of the 'distancing' camera work.
Many viewers already know that some people with a little money / power can be complete bastards to people with neither and desperate for either. It doesn't take over 2 hours to sell that message.
Watch it on DVD - have your thumb hovering over fast forward.
A Perfect and Realistic Depection of Immigrant
ongoam11 February 2024
Import/Export was a film that shows a realistic look at people bored with their lives. Olga, a young Ukrainian Woman, travels to Austria and works in a Care Home. Pauli, a young Austrian man, travels with his stepfather to Eastern Europe. I know that Import/Export was a Perfect film that the director Ulrich Seidl made. I know How director Depiect like this and I know that the film was so ambient. I love that this film was good and I know of that. Who knew that Import/Export was one of the perfect films that I had ever watched and the ending of the film made me shock that this film was cut to the black screen.
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