DRAMA IMPORT EXPORT (18) 141 min 00”
The great Werner Herzog would surely approve of the way the Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl (Dog Days) dissolves the traditional boundaries between the ‘real’ and the fictional in his films. With Import Export he works without a traditional script, encouraging spontaneous performances from his non-professional cast. Crucially he films his actors in authentic locations, whether it’s a geriatric hospital ward containing real-life patients, a notorious Romany housing estate, or an online sex centre, where the women perform for unseen Western clients. Stylistically he prefers long takes and static tableaux, which force us to gaze protractedly at both the characters and their surrounding landscapes.
Import Export consists of two seemingly unrelated stories. Olga (Ekateryna Rak) is a Ukrainian nurse, who leaves behind her infant daughter and mother in search of better paid work in Vienna. Unemployed Pauli (Paul Hoffman) meanwhile is making the reverse geographical journey. Owing money to various creditors, he’s accompanying his lecherous stepfather Michael (Michael Thomas), who’s installing arcade machines to venues in Slovakia and Ukraine.
This is a political film, in the widest sense of the term, demonstrating how in the ‘new’, free-market Europe vulnerable individuals are appallingly exploited: some of the most chilling sequences involve dementia sufferers being routinely humiliated and punished by the nurses. Amidst the misery and despair however, there are moments in the powerfully acted Import Export of compassion and tenderness, invariany involving the devout Olga. And which other films instruct you on the correct way to clean the teeth on a stuffed fox’s head? (Tom Dawson)
I Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 3— Thu 9 Oct.
46 THE LIST 2—16 Oct 2008
HORROR MIRRORS (15) 110min oo
Korea has recently surpassed Japan as the go—to guys for rubbish horror- movie ideas. with this remake of 2003's We the Mirror a good example of an already hokey plot getting seriously lost in translation. Alexandre Aja's disposable shocker features Kiefer Sutherland in full Jack Bauer mode as Ben Carson, an ex-cop who turns security guard to patrol the scorched interiors of a fire-gutted New York hotel. Having accidentally shot his partner in the line of duty. alcoholic Carson is estranged from his wife Amy (Paula Patton), and before you can say Jack Torrance in The Shining, he’s beginning to hallucinate that an evil force behind the hotel's mirrors is after his family.
Aja has already proved himself an accomplished visual stylist on Switchblade Romance and The Hills Have Eyes. but his visceral energy is misapplied to Mirrors. in which nearly two hours is dedicated to Carson working out something that was blindingly obvious within the first minute. At least Sutherland keeps a straight face even while kidnapping nuns at gunpoint. and Aja maintains decent levels of suspense in the opening third. But once the jaw- dropping implausibilities start raining down. it's a long. painful wait until the original film's (admittedly cool) twist ending kicks in. (Eddie Harrison)
I General release from Fri 3 Oct.
DRAMA
WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
(1 5) 1 07min .0
Tales about the mechanics of the movie industry and the bloated egos that work within it are the stuff of fantasy to filmmakers. Robert Altman's The Player is pretty much the definitive account of Hollywood. although that hasn't stopped films such as Albert Brook's The Muse recounting even more ludicrous tales of madcap directors, runaway budgets and public relations disasters.
The Barry Levinson-directed What Just Happened? is based on the autobiography of much-admired Hollywood producer Art Linson and features Robert De Niro as a washed- up producer living off former glories and desperate for another hit before his faltering reputation goes completely down the toilet. De Niro's character has also got to pay lots of alimony to his former wives. It's a subject the actor should know a lot about, but that still doesn't help the acting legend give anything more than a perfunctOry performance.
Star cameos are a staple in yarns about the film industry and the best here sees Bruce Willis threaten to jeopardise a movie by refusing to shave his beard. The laboured. almost morose storytelling style doesn't help either, although those interested in the behind-the-scenes machinations of movie production will definitely find something to keep them entertained. (Kaleem Aftab)
I General release from Fri 70 Oct.
DRAMA TIMES AND WINDS (BES VAKIT)
(15) 110min om
It's taken a couple of years for Times and Winds. the fourth feature of Turkish writer-director Reha Erdem, to find a British distributor. but it‘s been worth the wait: this magnificent work provides a striking vision of childhood in a mountainous Anatolian village overlooking the Aegean Sea. Erdem concentrates on the experiences of a trio of pre-pubescent adolescents within this patriarchal community. Omer (Ozkan Ozen), the son of the local Imam. resents the way his father prefers his younger sibling, and dreams up ways of hastening his dad's demise. Omer's pal Yakup (Ali Bey Kayali) has a crush on the schoolteacher (Selma Ergec). And the dreamy Yildiz (Elit lscan) is forced by her mother to look after her baby brother and do household chores.
Times and Winds is divided into five chronological sections, each one named after a specific time of day for Islamic prayers. Yet organised religion isn't the only force guiding the routines of the inhabitants: nature itself exerts its own powerful rhythms. The moon scuttles behind clouds. the wind blows through trees. the air is filled with birdsong and animals copulate.
The slow windscreen pans. elegant Steadicam sequences and swooping crane shots are accompanied by extracts from Arvo Part's compositions. which accentuate the mood of timeless yearning. Erdem too has found a resonant visual motif to express the states—of-mind of his pre-teen characters: he frequently shoots them blissfully asleep, lying in bushes or fields. and destined to wake up to the burden of adult duties and responsibilities. (Tom Dawson)
I Fi/mhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 70—Thu 76 Oct.