This is the type of movie that appeals to a particular sub-class of people (I won't call them sub-humans :P). Yes that was a joke, get over it
Anyway. This movie is basically composed of the following:
A) Long shots (5-6 minutes long) of random scenes on a cargo freighter. It might be looking at a door. It might be looking at the cargo. It might be looking at a pipe. It might be looking at a rotating wheel.
Occasionally, the sights are quite beautiful. Like when the sun's rays are slowly being blocked out by some heavy storm clouds. Or when the camera pans over a vast misty (possibly polluted) sea. But those shots are generally rare.
B) Ominous music overlayed on top of these shots.
C) There is no C, that's it.
The movie doesn't offer any coherent narrative. It is up to the viewer to create a narrative. In other words, its like reading a book with no words - you just flip from one empty page to the next, imagining that the emptiness of the pages means something extraordinarily deep and powerful. And at the end, you can convince yourself that what you've read is a groundbreaking work of art - after all, who else would even consider the revolutionary idea of writing a book with no words, images, or content of any kind? You can convince yourself that it was all some reflection on a deeper narrative.
But the problem is, there's no actual reason to think that any of that is true. And why bother even having a movie, if the value of all of the content is meant to be imagined? Should the next movie simply be an hour long video of paint drying? The content is virtually equivalent to what is shown in this movie - just ordinary life on a tanker, with some admittedly beautiful shots. In the end, you're the one who apparently has to do all the work in transforming that imagery into something worthwhile.
These movies are instances of "the emperor has no clothes" in the art world. For the few who do enjoy these experiences - that's great. Just like I'm sure there are a also a few people who enjoy reading empty books, pretending it is all a deeper experience. Or those who enjoy looking at a blank canvas, thinking it a masterpiece.
But on some level, I think there is a logical error built-in to how they operate. After some time watching hundreds of films, some film critics have gone so far in searching for deeper interpretations, that somewhere along the way they've forgotten that films have to have content to interpret in the first place.
