Sex trafficking is the subject of Austrian misanthrope Ulrich Seidl’s “Import/Export,” with brackish result: while his work, guest at over eighty film festivals worldwide, is pretty amazing on a formal level, filled with shimmering yet weighty brilliance, shot by Ed Lachman (“I’m Not There,” “Ken Park,” “Erin Brockovich”) and Wolfgang Thaler (Seidl’s “Dog Days” and “Jesus You Know”), his cold, relentless gaze makes Michael Haneke look like the well-behaved dinner guest that he is. Two stories dovetail, headed West to East and East to West, largely concerned with money and sex, readily a tale of contemporary Europe. Seidl’s meticulously precise compositions suggest less a world of beauty or of control than of chaos dispassionately observed. Like his fan Werner Herzog, Seidl sees the world in his own image: in his case, a collector of voyeurs, a collator of stares. He sees terrible things: Seidl is a twenty-first-century Diane Arbus without the fashion-magazine assignments. The sound design haunts: this is a Babel of the modern world. 135m. 35mm. (Ray Pride)
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
A Drag Getting Old: A Review Of Indiana Jones 5 In the protracted opening couple of reels, a very young, computer-crafted Harrison Ford plays a younger cultural marauder who first encounters the dull MacGuffin of the title.
Fine Line: A Review Of Shortcomings It's a season for the comeuppance of a curmudgeon in Randall Park's smart, biting "Shortcomings," adapted by Adrian Tomine from his graphic novel of the same name.
RECOMMENDED
