Translated material
Death is inevitable
On Moscow screens “Import-export” by Ulrich Seidl
Seidl's new, second feature film evoked different feelings - from delight to bewildered disgust. However, shown in the Cannes competition last year, it did not receive any prizes, unlike the first feature film of this famous Austrian documentarian - “Heat of a Dog”, awarded at the Venice Film Festival in 2001...Actually, “Heat of a Dog” was difficult and unpleasant to watch, but then, six years ago, the method of literally dramatizing almost real events seemed new and revolutionary. Several years have passed, and “Cinema Verite” is becoming almost mandatory for progressive filmmakers. Romanians make almost all of their few films this way, and, by the way, it was the Romanian “Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days” that received the Palme d’Or at Cannes. It combined the documentary nature of the image with a very clear and very emotional plot. The story of how one student in socialist Romania undergoes a clandestine abortion, and another helps her, seemed to both the audience and the judges much more entertaining and touching than the fate of the unfortunate misfits from Austria and Ukraine, moving in opposite directions and finding no consolation in this . In addition, a Romanian film is still an imitation of reality, while an Austrian film is an honest use of it.
Seidl was going to shoot six stories, but then settled on two - so you can look at all the circumstances in more detail: and the action takes place in a real hospital for the dying, in a real brothel and in real Slovak slums. The apartment of the heroine Olga, played by a real nurse Ekaterina Rak, is also genuine, and for greater truthfulness, the director ensured that it was not heated - just as, as we know, sometimes happens with apartments in the provinces.
The question is precisely this - the degree of selection and the direction of the search. For Seidl, the main thing is the accuracy of details, their authenticity and convincingness. And the more hopeless and hopeless the resulting picture, the better.
When there was active emigration from Eastern Europe to America at the beginning of the twentieth century, making such a film about two losers who went from the USA to Europe and, conversely, from Europe to the USA, would have been a feat. But then the idea of the dream was much stronger.
Now the world is becoming united, but in this uniform and therefore no more attractive world there are still poor and rich, strong and weak, living and dying. This is what Seidl is making his film about, but you and I already guessed about it. Perhaps, unlike the Austrians.
So, a Ukrainian industrial city is truly a rare thing - panel houses, cold, wind, the girl is wearing some kind of incredible coat, she works as a nurse, has no money, a friend offers to arrange a salon for sexual services on the Internet with foreigners, but our heroine there is neither the necessary swagger nor recklessness, she cannot organically say in German: “Squeeze your penis,” and she is refused. Then she heads to the West, where she works in a stuffed animal store, then as a maid for wealthy people, and finally as a cleaner in a hospice.
Her antagonist Paul, an Austrian blockhead without a job, profession or specific occupation, agrees to his stepfather's offer to sell used slot machines in Eastern Europe. Getting to Ukraine, they rent prostitutes in a bar, and the stepfather shows his stepson what these whores are capable of for money. The stepson is disgusted, there is still no money, and life does not turn the other way for him, demonstrating only hopelessness and meaninglessness. I must say, through Seidl’s efforts, she does this incredibly convincingly. But the whole set of surprises - devastated slums in Slovakia, broken roads in Ukraine, blue-green walls of the hospital in the heroine’s hometown and creamy walls in the city of her dreams, all this, in fact, is quite banal. And therefore, a film that does not please with either discoveries or emotions becomes boring to watch very quickly. Although you should watch it, because behind all the social cliches there is also serious content.
The world is decaying. Desires no longer have power over people, and only basic human needs retain their power. A metaphor for our life today is the patients of the chronicles hospital, where old people who have lost all dignity slowly and comfortably spend their last years. Old age is combined here with hopelessness, with a lack of goals, with an extinct consciousness. But isn't the life of Raoul or Olga the same? It is just as meaningless and hopeless, it has no future, if we understand it as an achievement, as a goal. We are all like these old people in the hospital, many of whom died during filming, and there are crosses against their names in the credits. Do we want to know about this? Not if we're not going to do anything about it. Yes, if we are not happy with this situation. Seidl, an optimistic pessimist, hopes that by rubbing humanity's nose in its own shit, he will cause a reaction of indignation, irritation, rage and thereby break the filthy circle. But people generally react differently - they are unpleasant and bored, and they turn away, thereby confirming the diagnosis.