IMDb RATING
7.0/10
6.4K
YOUR RATING
A nurse from Ukraine searches for a better life in Central Europe, while an unemployed security guard from Austria heads East for the same reason.A nurse from Ukraine searches for a better life in Central Europe, while an unemployed security guard from Austria heads East for the same reason.A nurse from Ukraine searches for a better life in Central Europe, while an unemployed security guard from Austria heads East for the same reason.
- Awards
- 2 wins & 2 nominations
Natalja Epureanu
- Olgas Freundin in Österreich
- (as Natalia Epureanu)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- Quotes
Mutter Einfamilienhaus: [Olgais told that shes fired] I Don't have to tell you my reasons. I just change my mind. I can hire you and fire you. That's how it is in this country.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Metropolis: Cannes 2007 - Special (2007)
- SoundtracksSerdtse
Written by Dunajewskij and W. Lebedjew-Kumatsch
Performed by Pjotr Leschenko
Featured review
Too long for the substance to sustain and too simplistic in its message, characters and narrative
I came to this film when it was mentioned by a fellow IMDb user who occasionally points me towards some European films that I have not seen. More often than not they are fairly bleak affairs but, while Hollywood probably dominates the action genre, Europe tends to be best at films dealing with the bleakness of life. And so it is here in a film that painstakingly depicts the bleakness of the lives of two characters. Olga is a nurse in the Ukraine who travels to the West for a better life and finds herself working in an old people's home as a cleaner. Meanwhile Pauli is a young man in Austria who has little going for him employment-wise and finds himself under the wing of his morally defunct step-father.
It is not a theme that I haven't seen before but here it seems to be the entire film and there is surprisingly little in the way of narrative framework, far less actual narrative flow to it. In itself this maybe isn't a problem because "experience" films can work as well as "start/middle/end" stories – but to go for in excess of two hours without much of a story is a tall order and it is one that this film cannot fill. Without much of a story or characters what results is essentially a wallow in some specific examples of life as survival until death and very little else. This message is perhaps fair enough but it is delivered without much intelligence and comment, just scene after scene laid out. It doesn't even really have any sort of central scenes or direction to it and indeed doesn't even have any "big" moments that one could see as having been built to – although I'm not saying it would have been better by artificially having them.
The cinema vérité style is to be commended because it does convince as a piece of realism (which is why perhaps not having one big "event" is a good thing) but the downside of it is that, like life sometimes, it is pretty dull and doesn't really have much meaning behind it. And this is what I took away from the film because I did find it to be far too long for the loose material to sustain and it did feel like each and every scene had only the same message to deliver and it just kept repeating that long after the audience had gotten it. I guess if you're looking for a film to confirm the drabness of existence then this is it but it must be said that there are films that do it with a lot more meaning and heart than this one.
It is not a theme that I haven't seen before but here it seems to be the entire film and there is surprisingly little in the way of narrative framework, far less actual narrative flow to it. In itself this maybe isn't a problem because "experience" films can work as well as "start/middle/end" stories – but to go for in excess of two hours without much of a story is a tall order and it is one that this film cannot fill. Without much of a story or characters what results is essentially a wallow in some specific examples of life as survival until death and very little else. This message is perhaps fair enough but it is delivered without much intelligence and comment, just scene after scene laid out. It doesn't even really have any sort of central scenes or direction to it and indeed doesn't even have any "big" moments that one could see as having been built to – although I'm not saying it would have been better by artificially having them.
The cinema vérité style is to be commended because it does convince as a piece of realism (which is why perhaps not having one big "event" is a good thing) but the downside of it is that, like life sometimes, it is pretty dull and doesn't really have much meaning behind it. And this is what I took away from the film because I did find it to be far too long for the loose material to sustain and it did feel like each and every scene had only the same message to deliver and it just kept repeating that long after the audience had gotten it. I guess if you're looking for a film to confirm the drabness of existence then this is it but it must be said that there are films that do it with a lot more meaning and heart than this one.
- bob the moo
- Apr 11, 2009
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
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- Also known as
- Імпорт/експорт
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross worldwide
- $563,513
- Runtime2 hours 21 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.78 : 1
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