Import Export

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.

This is a dark movie with a lot of sub plots. surprisingly it's an ok movie. if you're looking for something a little outside of the mainstream norm

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.

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.

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".