Very disappointed :(

Fantastic!

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Holy hell I have never had such a night. I recorded "Import/Export" on Film4, it was on there as part of the "Extreme Season" and thought that I'd give it a watch because it looked quite unsettling and I expected it to be slow-paced, yet gripping. It was none of those things. It wasn't even slow paced, it was beyond slow paced, I didn't even know a film could be this slow paced! I gave it a watch last night, and I understand that it was about 2hrs 30mins long but it felt like 4 and a half hours. I didn't actually read anything up about the film before viewing it, because I thought it was one of those films like "The Ordeal" where its better to let things unfold before knowing what's going to happen. Why the hell does this have an average rating of 7.0? I feel generous giving it 1!I don't often give films 1/10 because I can usually find something positive like the directing, or the effect it had on me. I even gave Lars Von Trier's "The Idiots" 2/10 on the account of it making me feel so uncomfortable and feeling disturbed that it's and experience I'll never forget. Similary "Import/Export" is an experience I'm not likely forget and not for the right reasons. I'll never forget it because I never knew that film could be this boring! Think of "Amelie" or "Mouln Rouge". Do you remember how full of energy and life they were? Well, "Import/Export" is the absolute polar-opposite of these films. Now, I'm not trying to say that it should be as full of life as those films because that clearly isn't what it's trying to go for here. But, what I am saying is it should just have a little bit of something that actually leads it on a path to somewhere.The film's biggest issue was that it didn't have a plot. So there are these two stories. One about a Ukrainian lady who goes around looking for a job, the system goes, finds one, loses it, finds one loses it and these jobs aren't exciting either, nothing happens that is significant in them at all. The second one is about a father and a step son going around looking for a job, this time with a twist (wait for it!!) they're looking for one IN the Ukraine! I know! I couldn't believe its interesting originality either! Oh, and guess what. Nothing happens. For the already long over-running time their is actually no content in the film. I believe the director's intentions was to show the truth about our human world and show how depraved we can be. Listen mate, I don't mind if you show me this, but at least present in a more exciting way. The two characters travel a road with pointless encounters that leads to nowhere and so does the film.The characters are completely unidentifiable, they're given little character and have little things to like about them. One's an immigrant who can't communicate the Austrian language and the other ones immigrants who can't speak the Ukrainian language. Hooray! Fun times. And who can forget the absolutely horrendous sexual imagery that served no purpose but to poison the viewers mind and probably to excite the perverted director. Some images were like porn. In fact it was porn really. The director said that he wanted these two scenes in to show the truth, that these things actually happen and people are too happy to brush it under the carpet. He said that he wanted to make them long so that it would have an impact. Yeah right, he's just a pervert! Listen here, Moon Unit, I know that the sex industry exists and I know about prostitution so you don't need to shove pointless pornographic images down my throat to understand that! If I wanted to watch porn, I'd go down to "WHSmiths" and look in the "Adult" section, but I don't want to watch porn! I want to watch a decent film! "Import/Export" is probably the worst film I've ever seen.I felt like I spent my whole life down in that sitting room and I seriously am struggling to think of a film I'd rather not watch than sit through this again! I can't understand why I didn't stop it? I've come close to stopping a film before ("Live Feed") but I've never actually done it. If I made it through "Import/Export" I think that I could probably watch anything with glee. So, weirdly I don't regret watching it, because now I can watch anything and see how so much better it is compared to this. The scenes with the geriatric patients were sometimes quite distressing and so the final scene was quite haunting for me. But, that doesn't change any of my views about this film. It's a plot less, characterless, scriptless mess that shouldn't be allowed to play on screens without giving a health warning first. I've heard people call films a 'snooze-fest' and I think that this is pretty much the definition on one.

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.

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.

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.