Film Reviews

Import/Export

• Rating:
• Director: Ulrich Seidl.
• Starring: Ekateryna Rak, Paul Hofmann, Michael Thomas.
• Details: Austria / 141mins (18).

After watching Import/Export, I realised there were three things I never want to do: I don't want to live in the Ukraine, I don't want to get old and, even though I'm glad I’ve seen it, I don't want to watch this film again. Grimmer than a grim thing, Import/Export is a hard slog of a film with nothing but decay and depression in the 141 minutes running time. Single mum Olga (Rak) is a Ukrainian nurse who, struggling to make ends meet, takes up a part-time Internet porn job. Eventually she leaves her baby with her mother and makes for Vienna where she lands a job as a cleaner in an old folks home. Heading in the opposite direction is Pauli (Hofmann), an Austrian security guard so deep in debt to his stepfather, he's forced to deliver gumball machines to the Ukraine for free. Pauli isn't a nice guy (in actuality he's an asshole, teasing his canine-phobic girlfriend with his new dog) but compared to the people around him he's a saint. As close to a documentary narrative film can get, Import/Export's strengths lie in honest characters and realism - Olga's old folks' home and Pauli's visit to a Ukrainian dilapidated housing flats are too close to the bone. A shoe-in for the most depressing film of 2008, the plotless nature of the film can be wearisome, however, two hours plus of non-stop social rot can melt the most cynical of minds.

Review by Gavin Burke