Import Export

Import Export marks Ulrich Seidl’s first fictional effort since 2001’s Dog Days, and there’s little doubt that the film is just as challenging (and plotless) as its predecessor. Seidl’s fascination with society’s underbelly continues here, as the filmmaker places the emphasis on characters that are uniformly screwed up (in Seidl’s universe, everybody is either miserable or cruel). The wafer-thin storyline follows a man (Paul Hofmann’s Paul) and a woman (Ekateryna Rak’s Olga) as they leave their respective homes in search of a better life, with Paul traveling to the Ukraine to install videogambling machines and Olga landing a job as a cleaner at an Austrian geriatric home. As expected, Seidl has infused Import Export with a number of long (and distinctly interminable) sequences in which characters do nothing of any significance or importance – a vibe that’s exacerbated by the inclusion of dialogue that’s clearly been improvised (the movie is rife with circular conversations that go absolutely nowhere). And while Seidl’s relentless emphasis on the extreme tediousness of his characters’ lives does eventually lull the viewer into a hypnotic reverie, there’s just no denying that Import Export‘s extreme length (143 minutes!) proves to be far too insurmountable an obstacle for the filmmaker to overcome.

*1/2 out of ****