Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Imdbidia 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.

film_riot This is Austrian director Ulrich Seidl's second non-documentary feature film after "Hundstage", but it is still very likely that an attentive audience can see where he is coming from. Seidl's style is a mixture of harsh realism and stylization carried to an extreme. It's hard for me to criticize his films on a good-bad-scale. I just can give an idea of what reactions "Import Export" triggered in me. Olga's way is characterized by constant exploitation in every one of her jobs. Only in the geriatrics home she has a stabile work environment (!), but ironically it's then, that she is supposed to leave the country again. Paul seems rather likable, but also with him you never want to connect too much (in the end you know why, maybe). Like Olga he is a loser of the system and not given the chance for improvement. Neither by his employers, nor by the people he owes money to, nor by his stepfather. Seidl is one of those Austrian filmmakers that actually are a role model for artistic intransigence.

scandojazzbuff No matter what you think about a film like Import/Export, you have to have some kind of reaction to it. It is an unsettling, bleak look at a couple of lives that the viewer will rarely think about unless confronted with in a film like this. The story takes place in both Ukraine and in Austria and focuses on 2 lives of very different people who share a similar circumstance of being at the end of the line in the place that they live in. Both seek change and their circumstances take very different shapes and fates but share a similar intention, to find a better life.The director and writer give us little hope in their depiction of these 2 lives and how their environments constantly conspire to either keep them down or challenge their will to survive and change. It is a story at once about Eastern Europe and a story about the world's 'lower classes' and their monumental struggle against inertia and their past. It is a movie filled with images, humor, highs and lows, and, graphic scenes of sexual play that all add to the base quality of the human experience that exists not only in Eastern Europe, but, many place in the world today. Human beings have created incredible technology and yet there is still so much ignorance, cruelty, and, general meanness in the world. A rough film told with a keen eye toward a subtle message.

slabihoud Import/Export is not a film one recommends easily. It is a great film but it is not one to look at casually. The director Ulrich Seidl already has a reputation for drastic dialog and acting in his films. He started with documentaries and this is always apparent in his consequent films. The atmosphere is often unbearably realistic, many of his actors deliver so convincing performances that one thinks they must have been brought in from the street. They are not though. This, combined with simple framing leads to the strong documentary impression. In this film the focus is on two story lines which move in opposite directions. On starts in the Ukrainia and moves to Vienna, Austria and the other starts in Vienna and ends in Ukrainia. Both show a harsh life with violence and humiliation and sexual exploitation. While viewing this film I often wanted to look away or close my eyes as to protect my soul from the terrible experiences, the two protagonists are facing in very different ways. The moments of violence, humiliation and sexuality, although shorter then in his earlier films, are shown in a very graphic way, and stay in your mind long after the picture is over. Maybe you will never forget them. In this, the film has some parallels to Lukas Moodysons "Lilja 4-ever" which also makes you forget that it is a work of fiction you are watching. Moodyson concentrates himself completely on the tragic story of the main character's exploitation through the economic system and the resulting criminality in eastern Europe, plus the demand for sex without love in the western world and it"s tragic consequences for your unprotected girls. Seidl, on the other hand, chooses a young but grown up woman and mother in Ukrainia, a trained nurse, who can't make a living by working in a hospital and is forced to work as a porn model in from of an internet camera. Then she leaves for Vienna to work there in various unpleasant jobs. In the second storyline Seidl shows a young man from Vienna, trying unsuccessful to hold a job and always on the run from people he borrowed money from. He joins his stepfather on his trip through eastern Europe, delivering game automates and the like. They are both frustrated by their poor outlook of their future, and although they don't like each other, they both concur in spending their money easily on booze and women which they like to intimidate and humiliate.The film has some rare comic moments, but often scenes open on a funny note but then change fast into something that makes you choke on your own laughter. All in all a great, disturbing film!