I think the first rule of storytelling is to have a story to tell.
And while there is just the barest story to tell in this film, it takes an excruciatingly long time to tell it. This could easily have been cut down by half, or perhaps even made into a short film, and resulted in a far better film.
I actually do think this film is much better than other boredom greats, such as Die Salzmänner von Tibet (1997) (The Saltmen of Tibet), and Last Days (2005). But if you liked this film, then you'll probably love those, because even less happens in those films.
I also feel that something must have gone wrong in the translation. In English, nobody tells people that they are "able". Words like "capable", "resourceful", "skilled", or "grown up" would have been better. Also, several times people were speaking, but no translation was provided at all. I suspect they weren't saying much, because their language seems to be tremendously slow and wordy, but the viewer deserves to know what they were saying, given that almost nothing else is happening.
It's unclear what time-period this film is supposed to represent. I'm guessing it's supposed to be from over 100 years ago, but who knows?
Last, I found the song "Why Must We Die" to be very out-of-place. First, the singer is presumably not one of them, so "we" is incorrect. Second, the song makes reference to carbon and DNA. But she's singing about people who have never even seen metal before, much less studied chemistry and biology. Last, the obvious answer to the question is: to make room for the next generation. If everyone lived forever, we'd already have killed the planet decades ago. Sorry, but it's just a stupid, stupid song, so over-romanticized, condescending, and sounds like it was written by committee.
