Xmas Special: Grey Christmas

Yay, Christmas! Last year, I raised holiday spirits throughout the world with my classic Killer Santas post, which took a look at murderous Kris Kringles. With this year, of course there was no comeptition as to what to write abou. Why, take a page from Dangermouse's playbook and mix up the darkest Beatles and lightest Jay-Z's of Christmas movies. It looks as though this Christmas will be very white here in Christmas, so we'll go through this chronologically.

White Christmas (1954)
Director: Michael Curtiz

This is a classic Christmas tale by none other than by the director of Casablanca! It's one of those musicals that is based on a pre-existing song everyone knows and tells the story as to why there's special power and meaning within it. In this case it's of course the titular Yuletime clambake (the movie's exact phrase) that's rather touchingly covered by Crosby in the beginning, and again rather cheesily in the final scene by the whole cast.

Captain Bob Wallace (Bing Crosby) is a WWII soldier that aims to boost the morales of their fellow brothers-in-arms by arranging a Christmas song concert. This act is soon shot down by his commanding officer. Soon after, private Phil Davis (Danny Kaye) saves his life at the expense of a broken arm. Wallace asks if there's anything he could do for Davis. As it happens, Davis saw his concert and has written a number of songs for a duo to sing. When V Day comes, and the war ends, the duo becomes a successful song and dance -act, touring the United States.

The entertainers meet a sister act, Betty (Rosemary Clooney) and Judy Haynes (Vera-Ellen). Davis wants to play the match-maker, but Wallace is a bit wary of their charms. The both pairs are booked into the same hotel for a Christmas show, Vermont Inn. The lodge is about to be demolished, and since their old war General is the current owner, they all agree to raise the money to keep the hotel opened.

This film certainly has some of that old-time charm that's hard to imitate. The colors, sets and acting talents are very old-fashined but still quite stylish. That being said, the romantic comedy angle runs along quite familiar tracks and raise few smiles any more. Most of the songs are also pretty forgettable. The film is salvaged by the charisma and talent of the leading actors, and the charms and talent of the leading ladies. It's not one of the most obvious Christmas classics, since it has plenty of un-Christmas related material thrown in, but it's well worth a look anyhow.

★★★

Black Christmas (1974)
Director: Bob Clarke

Bob Clarke's original Christmas horror movie is a clear inspiration to John Carpenter's Halloween, from the killer's POW shots to the ominous holiday set-up. It has plenty of innovative ideas and good scenes, but the problem is that they don't really band together to be a tight enough whole.

It should be tight enough to not be able to breathe.

A sorority house is emptying up as the girl students leave off for the holidays. Only a few young women stay to spend Christmas there. Shown to the audience, a deranged murderer is staying at the attic of the house, spying on its occupants. While lounging around in the sorority house, the girls start to get ominous phone calls that sound a bit weird to come from a sheer pervert.

Unknown to most, Jess (Olivia Hussey) is pregnant to her boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea). She wants to get an abortion, yet he is adamantly against the idea. Meanwhile, the local police Lt. Fuller (John Saxon) investigates the death of a 13-year-old runaway and starts to get more and more worried that the sorority girls might be the next victims.

The film is very patchy. Especially the extended comedy segments are very dated just dire. The film dwells so long on a rookie cop spelling the name of a captured hooker F-E-L-L-A-T-I-O, that the audience dies of boredom before the punchline. Even Carry On films would be ashamed of that scene.

No! No! No Fellatio jokes!

Clarke forgets tension building to extended periods, but doesn't offer much in place, and can't pick up on where he left off.The opening is very effective an puts the audience into the right mood, but waiting for the next thing to happen is direly long. The killer lurks the whole movie in the attic, while tensions build between characters downstairs. At the risk of spoiling a little, in the end, he still kind of lingers on. The idea of evil remaining is nice, but in this case the missing out on any closure doesn't help when it feels like nothing much had happened anyway.  At least several characters resolve their differences.  

You better not fight, you'd better watch out...

★★ 1/2

Black Christmas (2006)
Director: Glen Morgan

Horror remakes with minimum effort are a plague nowadays, and usually not even worth a glance, let alone 90 minutes of precious time. Since the original Black Christmas is so dull seen by modern eyes, it would be at last one where an update potentially has the chance for improvement. Well, the modern version certainly isn't better, but it isn't completely worthless, either. That is, if one happens to like Friday the 13th sequels where there is little interest in characters or plot, but heavily on how gorily people can be offed.

The modern Black Christmas has a very similar story in that it also features a killer preying on girl students spending their Christmas at the sorority house. But this time, the murdered has a more detailed history, not to mention a skin condition that makes him look like That Yellow Bastard segment from Sin City. He is Billy Lentz, a maniac that killed his whole family in the early 80's. Now, he's escaped from the local lunatic asylum and arriving back home to Christmas. While he doesn't like the girls inhabiting his beloved house, at the same time he has an obsession on family, and wants to make the girls parts of his new family.

Writer-director Glen Morgan can't build tension worth shit. The first half of the movie is simply horrendous, giving a needlessly detailed back-story to the serial killer on the loose, and having seemingly endless discussions between its bland main characters. All the charisma and interesting characteristics of the original BC have been surgically removed from the girls, but this time around there are plenty of more of them, and no focus on the police.

Things take a turn for the better when a deranged killer starts baking Christmas cookies made from human flesh. From there on, the film takes a firm tongue-in scene twist. The paper-thin characters turn into paper maché, since otherwise the kills would make absolutely no sense. Thus, an icicle falling from the roof can pierce an adult's head, a skate thrown at a close range can split a head into two, and people can be impaled on a Christmas tree. This stupidity carries the rest of the movie somewhat funnily, even if there are no signs of any originality at any point of this thing. All in all this really contains little anything that wouldn't be available elsewhere more entertainingly. Best stick to your old-school slashers for the holidays then, kiddies.

★★

25th helping of Love & Anarchy

Festival poster circa 1993. Image Source: http://www.hiff.fi 

Helsinki International Film Festival opens today! This year, the festival is celebrating a quarter-century of Love & Anarchy. For a person my age (i.e. only a year or few older than the festival) it's hard to imagine the film-going climate of the days before. While it's a myth there weren't any interesting art house flicks and such in theatres, the fact was that they came from a pretty thin slice of the world. Love & Anarchy changed all that way back when.

The very first HIFF movie poster.

Due to the festival, we have today film distribution companies that will bring us some real treats from around the world, even if DVD's have taken over much of our movie-watching customs and there aren't that many theaters around any more. Since Love & Anarchy itself celebrates it's history with a retrospective of various treats from the years back, I thought this would be a good chance to preview several older films to be shown at Love & Anarchy's retrospective series. After all, I already did one post about tips, and other blogs have been tooting the same horn ever since. Besides, this is a rare opportunity to do a retrospective and a preview at the same time.

The Killer (Hong Kong, 1989)
Director: John Woo

As mentioned, Love & Anarchy used to be the first and only place to see some of the Greatest Hits of Asian movies in the whole Finland. One of the festival's most important imports is the action cinema of Hong Kong director John Woo. Woo himself also visited the festival in the early 90's. His best film is still this action tale, pondering the morality of a violent hit man, and the code of ethics he has in the job.

The deadliest mob enforcer/assassin on the business, Ah Yong (Chow-Yun Fat) accidentally blinds the nightclub singer Jenny during one of his jobs. Feeling guilty, he dedicated his life to take care of her and vows to quit his line of business. But in order to get Jenny a surgery to restore her eyesight, he has to take on one last assignment. But it turns out the Triads don't want him to stay alive and the mission turns out to be a trap. With his skills, Ah Yong survives the first encounter with Triad thugs, but there wlll be more after his head. He makes a deal with the hot shot detective Li Ying (Danny Lee) to bring down the mob bosses. Li Ying learns to trust his foremost worst enemy and starts to see the warm heart beating inside an unstoppable killer.

Like many of Woo's films, at it's core it's about friendship and almost a wartime brotherhood type of relationship with two men facing overwhelming odds and billions of bullets. Woo perfected his shooting scenes with almost ballet-like choreography and utilized stuff like slow-motion and symbolic imagery that broke into mainstream American cinema a decade later after The Matrix. But Woo is a true original. There's no way around it, this is a cornerstone in action movie cinema altogether. And thus also warrants its place in Love & Anarchy's retrospective, no matter how many times you may have seen it already.

★★★★

Chungking Express (Hong Kong, 1994)
Director: Wong Kar-Wai

Sometimes the greatest films come from a little impovisation. In the early 90's, melodrama maestro Wong Kar-Wai was on a roll. While making Ashes of Time he took a two month vacation but couldn't calm down and just be still. He decided to make a movie based purely on his gut instinct. Thus was born a gripping tale of loneliness, everyday romanticism and bittersweet emotionalism. And Chungking Express is at least among, if not the best of Wong's films.

Chungking is basically an episode film in that it features two stories that are similar, yet don't have much in common with each other. In the most densely populated areas of Hong Kong, two lovelorn policemen each on their own, never meeting, try to overcome a broken heart and fall in love again.

First, we have a young 24-year-old cop (Takeshi Kaneshiro), whose first love with an unseen woman named May is going to pieces. He gives her one year to change her mind, until his 25th birthday, and remains adamant that they will get back together, bordering on obsessive. He becomes pedant to the point where he starts to collect tin cans with the same expiration date as his relationship. But the day comes and May doesn't contact him in any way. He goes to a bar to drink and decides to falls for the first woman he sees. She turns out to be mysterious blonde woman (Brigitte Lin) who, unknown to him, just so happens to be a notorious drug smuggler. But she too is broken and alone and finds a kindred spirit in him, even if her bad business won't allow her to become attached.

The second story is similar, as it concerns another cop (Tony Leung) trying to get over the break up with his airline stewardess girlfriend. He eats every day at a small noodle shop at a station, where he is spotted by the quirky noodle-saleswoman (Faye Wong). She falls in love with him and decides to help him get over the breakup, and starts following him around.

The universality of the tales is underlined by the fact that character names aren't used. Hong Kong is only shot in neon light at night, and particularly in the second story, likened with Los Angeles, California. Both are full of broken dreams, and are seething with crimes and broken promises, yet have a melancholic loneliness at the hearts of many of its occupants at the same time. Wong develops his stunning visuals (realized by cinematographer Christopher Doyle) from scarcely-lit noir films old and new. Even though the stories concern policemen, they aren't solving crimes nor doing much police work.

As melodramas come, Wong doesn't trust to worn-out plots nor hammy acting. Instead, the film barely has a plot and will remain frustratingly unresolved for those waiting for happy endings that tie all loose ends together. But Wong respects his audience's intelligence more and keeps things subtle while the imagery just seeths with the emotions he wants to come across. Every lonely person on the planet who wants to believe in love but is too much of a realist to accept a hokey Hollywood love story to come true, will find his or her true love with this film. 

★★★★★

Naked Lunch (Canada/UK/Japan, 1991)
Director: David Cronenberg

Cronenberg's love letter to the beat novel by William S. Burroughs is by far not everyone's cup of tea. I hardly understood the novel way back in the day. Upon first viewing, I deemed the film to be a shallow adaptation, doing weird stuff for weirdness' sake. Yet Cronenberg is rarely simple and a subsequent viewing is often more than handy. The Canadian author has stated his film is based more on his personal experience of Burroughs' writing rather than a straight adaptation (which would be somewhat impossible, given the novel's rambling style, jumping from one thing to another with seemingly little effort).

This is a movie that has a constant theme, which is William S. Burroughs. Several aspects of the man pop up from unexpected places, most notably his urge to write, his ambivalent homosexuality, his tendency to binge on hard drugs and liqueur. Some of the most dramatic parts of his life, such as the accidental homicide of his wife by trying to shoot a glass on her head, are also main plot points.

If you need to know more about the plot, it's about the exterminator William Lee (Peter Weller) who finds that the powder he uses to kill bugs is also a powerful hallucinogenic drug. This gives the uptight man new purpose in life, as he rediscovers his passion for writing. But the drug also causes him to act in strange ways and possibly kill his wife Joan (Judy Frost). He travels to the Islamic port to get to the bottom of his wife's disappearance and to make amends with two dueling creatures inhabiting his various type writers.

So, this is a delirious account, where there's a strong sense of anything being possible. It's a film that delves into the human subconscious and brings up some of our most grotesque fears. Disgusting creatures and body modifications appear here and there. There's no one better to do this than Cronenberg. Bright colors make this almost cartoonish, or more accurately, instantly looking like the cover of a 50's pulp fiction novel. Burroughs' text is recited in several scenes with characters telling stories. I think the author himself was proud of how respectful this is, while at the same time unmistakably a product of the feverish imagination of its director.

★★★★

Hana-bi – Fireworks (Japan, 1997)
Director: Takeshi Kitano

Another notable presence in the festival throughout the years has been the Japanese "Beat" Takeshi Kitano. He shares Wong Kar-Wai's knack for melancholy, but whereas Wong makes strong, vivid melodramas, Kitano makes calm, poignant, and slowly moving genre films, most notably crime films. Renowed for his almost zen-like yakuza trilogy, Kitano surprised the world when he took some elements of his previous work, and made with the same tools his most touching film.

Yoshitaka Nishi (Kitano) is a police officer who quits the force. His reasons are personal in two levels. First, he's struggling with the guilt over the crippling of his partner Horibe (Ren Ohsugi) in a shootout. Second, he needs time off to care for his wife Miyuki (Kayoko Kishimoto), who is dying of leukemia. He will do anything for her, even break his morals. But one brick builds on top of another and Nishi eventually gets indebted to the yakuza. He must sacrifice more and more for those he loves, and this altruism will start to threaten his very life.

As with his best work, Kitano uses silence to great avail and lets us viewers often figure ourselves what's going on through the heads of his main characters at several given times. The film is deeply personal, since it's Kitano's first film after surviving a near-fatal car accident. The suicidal feelings of the wheelchair-bound Horibe must have come across the auteur's mind before. Like himself, characters are seen using art as a therapy method.

But while the film deals with traumas, guilt and sacrifice, it's main message is none of these. The film tells us simply of how beautiful and precious life is. Miyuki is a beautifully realized character, appreciating art, and wind at the beaches as she's nearing her end. While Nishi may be altruistic and self-sacrificial, she is the true role model of the story as she spends none of the time in self-pity or wallowing in past pains but enjoying the little things during the few moments she has left.

★★★★

Elephant (USA, 2003)
Director: Gus van Sant

A big part of Love & Anarchy's programme has been to bring both major award winners and American independent films to screens before anyone else has had the chance to. So was the case with the Palm d'Or -winning Elephant, one of Gus van Sant's finest. The film has been made in the aftermath of Columbine high school massacre, but sadly, it's perhaps even more poignant today as such mindless carnage has grown more common all around the western countries.

While suggesting how the film ends may be regarded as a spoiler, it is by no means hard to guess. All in all, it adds poignancy to van Sant's approach to the subject. His camera tours around a seemingly-regular high school in Portland one day, stopping at various teens talking about their problems, plans or other mundane things. But at the same time two sad, lonely, fucked-up teens, Alex (Alex Frost) and Eric (Eric Deulen), who are preparing for their own ultimate solution. These guys are humanely also shown as dumb, naïve and (deeply) flawed young persons as they are, not as some vicious killing machines born to do harm to others.

To call the film melancholic would be an understatement. No matter how mundane things van Sant's teens deal with, there's a string of finality in them. It's as if his characters were already dead, trying to get through their final day and having their last conversations. Van sant has a deep understanding of teenagers and his dialogue is natural, unforced and realistic. Much of his film's young cast appear with their own first names.

The tragic hero of the film, John (John Robinson) is randomly spared by Alex and Eric just before they start their shoot-out. He tries his best to first stop people from going to school, but is not taken seriously since he's seen as a geek. Then he attempts to alert parents and authorities, but this has little effect on how the things go down and many of his friends die.

As for the somewhat cryptic title, I see it as a fairly clear metaphor: Elephants never forget, so we should not forget the victims of surprising and cruel mass murders either.

★★★★

Grizzly Man (2005)
Director: Werner Herzog
 

One of the best movies of the 2000s (yes, way up there) is this Werner Herzog's oddball documentary, which at face value repeats much of the director's basic themes, such as an eccentric individual dismissing the rules of a society and man's relationship with uncontrollable forces of nature.

This is truly a story too weird to be fiction. Timothy Treadwell was a natural conservenatiotist who loved the great outdoors and spent whole summers in the wilderness. More troubling was his love towards animals, particularly bears. He viewed them as his peers, friends and companions. Treadwell didn't get along well with many people and started to sink deeper and deeper into his own world he saw nature. In actuality his vision of nature was warped by his own mind. Treadwell was also a major narcissist, shooting endless tapes of himself ranting about nature and his sightings.

Ultimately, Treadwell's life ended in a tragedy as he was mauled and eaten by a hungry grizzly bear. Years later, Herzog attempts to find and capture this free-spirit's soul. His film mostly consists of clips from Treadwell's own tapes. But our German documentarist/narrator also does some leg work and travels to meet persons who knew something of the spirit of Treadwell.

The movie is all about kindred spirits. Treadwell felt bears were his, until nature's cruelty made it's point clear. Yet this also extends to Herzog who sees something similar in the ranting, but smart and poetic Treadwell, as he did with his muse Klaus Kinski. Herzog's own scenes, particularly one where hears the audio of Treadwell's death tape are almost as chilling and memorable as Treadwell's own.

The movie arises multiple points to ponder till the conservationatists come home. Where actually is one man's place between unforgiving nature and society, where the most original, poetic individuals may be shunned and not allowed to grow freely. It’s a beautiful movie, very poetic and yet a really sinister spiral into madness.

★★★★★

Taxidermia (Hungary/Austria/France, 2006)
Director: György Pálfi

This offbeat and grotesque Hungarian movie satirizes the Hungarian national psyche and history. It is an episodic film showcasing three generations of men from the Balatony family. It's also not much of a plot-driven movie, rather than a mood piece that showcases the perversity, greed and madness of each generations focus person.

WWII-era soldier Morosgoványi Vende (Csaba Czene) is a figure sort of like a sex-crazed Woyczeck. Slow-minded, he's constantly berated and belittled by his commanding officer Lieutenant Balatony Lajoska (Marc Bischoff). He has chosen to give Morosgovány shelter, but makes him sleep in the pigsty. He has vivid sexual desires towards Lieutenant's teenaged daughters and even his obese wife.

In the 1970's Morosgoványi's bastard son Balatony Kálmán (Trócsányi Gergõ) is a world-class competititor at speed eating. He falls for the women's speed eating champion Aczél Gizi (Stanczel Adél), much to the chagrin of his coach and foster-uncle. Distracted by love, he has a horrible accident while competing.

In the modern day, Kálmán has grown to be a morbidly obese mountain of lard. He lives with his son Balatony Lajoska (Marc Bischoff), who is a taxidermist, whom he despises. For Lajoska is thin as a stick, and a major disappointment in the eyes of his father. After the death of his wife, the only thing he can love are his three huge cats. Lajoska takes his father's insults and verbal violence calmly, but in secret harbors a plan to get back at him and also to get himself recognition all over the world.

Taxidermia is surely a one-of-a-kind movie. Filled with the blackest humour imaginable and with scenes unbelievably disgusting and delirious, mere text doesn't do it justice. It's like the British comedy series The League of Gentlemen or Monty Python's The Meaning of Life - on acid. Only splatter fans and truly twisted individuals can value the film at face value, but then, we find mountains of things to love here. Particularly the suberbly odd final punch.

But the film does go a little deeper. To get to the core one should know a little bit about Hungarian history and society. Suffice to say, history hasn't been kind to Hungarians, which explains why each generation has their own traumas and crosses to bear. Pálfi takes the faults caused by these traumas and takes them to ridiculous extremes. So, when people fight to survive, comes strong sexual urges. When food is scarce and people are hungry, comes overwhelming greed and gluttonous food orgies. And when one looks past these days, when things are finally better, one finds a need to still concerve some of these horrible sins rather than to move on.

★★★ 1/2

The rest of Love & Anarchy's retrospective after the festival. Right now I'm in a hurry to get to the screening opening film, Beasts of the Southern Wild. Hope to see you at the festival!

Espoo Ciné 2012

The restored version of Méliès's A Trip to the Moon was one of this year's highlights. Sadly, I missed the film.

There was a mighty fine film festival in Espoo this year. While the programme boasted less obvious picks, the overall quality of the festival was as high as ever. I, once again, saw some of the most interesting films from Europe and around and here's what I thought of them.

The Opening Film:
Amour (France/Austria)
Director: Michael Haneke

With this film, Haneke bacame one of the prestigious few who have won the Palm d'Or at Cannes twice. And it is a real corker. While Haneke remains faithful to his cold, sterile, analytic style, the film still revals surprisingly humane sides of the grumpy Austrian auteur. Like the title states, this is about love, but Haneke-style.

In the spotlight of the film are an elderly couple of wealthy music teachers, Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva). They live together in a vast flat in the middle of Paris, where most of the film is also set. But then, their everyday routines are threatened when Anne has a stroke and her health starts to falter. Georges takes care of his bed-ridden wife as best he can. Their worried daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) comes to visit and suggest that Anne could get better treatment at a hospital. Georges is adamant that she'll be best off in their home, and makes effort to get the very best treatment and care for her as he can.



It seems odd that so few movies dare to deal with the Autumn years of peoples' lives. It is the time when lives may be changes in a flick of a wrist, and may hang by a thread. Watching Amour is utterly devastating and hard. One doesn't need flashy melodrama and luscious over-the-topness to tell about us as people. This is as honest and down-to-earth as one can get, never spoon-feeding the viewers with anything. As is often the case with Haneke, this is less a story, more a study of emotions and situations. The director's characterization is precise and is helped tremendously by the excellent cast. Also faithful to the director's style, he devastates upper-middle-class living, where the appearence of the situation may be the most important thing. As precious of his wife is to him, Georges can't stand the thought of humiliating her by allowing just anyone to treat her. All the possessions the rich pair owns eventually turn into empty relics at a tomb. We know from the beginning how the thing will play out, which adds to the hoplessness and emotional punch of the film. It's a near masterpiece, although I'm not quite sure what to make of the final scene that seems to be at odds with everything else on display here.

★★★★ 1/2

Brave (USA)
Directors: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman

Is Pixar the victim of its own success? Everyone seemed to wait a sort of second coming or a cinematic masterpiece from the next film produced by the studio that last did Cars 2, and the reviews this little gem has got reflects those. But that's not how studios work, even though Pixar still works as a sign of quality. Had Brave been released as a Walt Disney Animated Classic (tm), it would've been hailed as that studio's best effort in ages. Brave does feel to have more in common with Disney's tradition of animated movies rather than Pixar's.

This is an old-fashioned fairytale, concerning a princess, this time in ye old Scotland. Merida (Kelly Macdonald) has been prepared her whole life by her mother Elinor (Emma Thompson) to choose a suitor and get married. Her father Fergus (Billy Connolly) would rather have scraps and feasts, but humors her wife and calls off the three biggest clan leaders of his kingdom to present their sons for Merida to pick a husband. But Merida opposes the plan, and runs away from home. In a forest, she stumbles upon an old witch, and persuades her to do a spell that would change her mother. But the spell changes more than she bargained for, and soon both the daughter and the mother have to fight for survival.

If the story seems to consist of familiar elements, it might be, but they are mixed so as to feel fresh. It is good to see a fairy tale animation after a long while that has almost none cute postmodernism, winking at the audience or anachronistic modern jokes. There is a little less humor than usually in Disney/Pixar films, although the comical scenes play well. One would've wanted some more of the bonkers carver witch and the three mute, red-headed rascal wee 'uns, which is always a good sign. 

Essentially, this is a story about a quarrelling family, and even more precisely, a relationship between a mother and her teenaged daughter with very different interests. The film argues that real bravery is not in any fight skills or archery, but in the care for others and willingness to put her- (or him-) self in jeopardy just to save those that one loves. Where does changing oneself go, is the film's real conflict. Such ideas are universal. It also helps that the film is easily Pixar's most gorgeous. The fog, the dark natural light, the elements at play. They help create an athmosphere akin to the one in early 1940's, a bit "darker", Disney fables, such as Pinocchio and Fantasia. It's also almost as exciting.

★★★★

Hell (Germany/Switzerland)
Director: Tim Fehlbaum

While everyone knows how Roland Emmerrich loves to destroy the Earth in his own movies, he has for a change also produced a little more down-to-earth take on the Apocalypse in his native Germany. Hell seems like an intriguing concept, a cautionary tale about Global Warming, and an exciting tale of what happens when humanity is pushed to a corner. But sadly, the film plays it way too safe and takes whole pages on better realized post-apocalyptic films.

So Global Warming has raised the Earth's temperature by 10 degrees. Some developments in the sun have made the athmosphere even more scorching, so people can't survive outside any longer. Water has become scarce and the most valuable commodity. Two sisters, Marie (Hannah Herzsprung) and Leoni (Lisa Vicari) travel with Tom (Stipe Erceg) in his run-down car to mountains, where there is rumoured to still be sweet water. But along the way there are also other people who need to kill in order to survive themselves. When the group is ambushed, Marie will stop at nothing to save her sister.

So the road trip come study of a relationship with two blood relatives in a world-in-ashes undoubtedly brings in mind Cormac McCarthy's book and John Hillcoat's film The Road. Hell is almost a carbon-copy of the film's imagery and features a very similar hopeless mood. The most interesting dynamics come in the very beginning as the uneasy relationship between the sisters hint that Marie is only having an affair with Tom so they can ride with him and try to find safety. The unrelenting heat and constant peril also work well in the setting. Unfortunately the film forgets most of its rules as it goes along. The ending turns into just another backwoods survival story where people run away from inbred cannibals. And run away outside, where just a few moments ago was declared to be too hot to even go without wrapping oneself in blankets and moving very slowly. As the film also has very few original ideas, it is quite tedious and boring to watch. A pity.

★★

Moonrise Kingdom (USA)
Director: Wes Anderson

One filmmaker that few dared to hope to grow up, is certainly the indie boy darling Wes Anderson. He's been held back by his trademark style of overwhelming quirkiness for about a decade. But while he still doesn't let go of his well-tested tropes, Moonrise Kingdom ranks among his very best films for one clear reason: In it, the characters come first, the quirks second. This is a love story between a misfit and a rebel, and everything else in the film is built to reflect on the fact.

In a small New England island in the 1960's, everyone knows each other. The orphaned Sam (Jared Kilman) has been let out of a correctional institute to join the Eagle Scouts, led by Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton). But in secret Sam has been planning to run away with a girl he met a year ago while sneaking into the dressing room of a church play, Suzy (Kara Hayward). Suzy is the daughter of two quarreling lawyers (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand). As she is starting to show signs of puberty her sudden mood swings go from violent to mellow and her parents are clueless as to how to handle her. But she finds a kindred spirit in Sam and they go off exploring the lesser-known parts of the island, finding a reclusive spot on the beach.

Anderson's nostalgic look at a tiny town in the 60's makes it seem like the film was somewhat based on actual childhood experiences. Indeed, Sam seems to be a sort of alter ego to the director. Two understanding father figures try to reach Sam, firstly Ward representing the authority-led community. The more important male character is the melancholic police officer Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), who is a loser in his life and love. His affair with Suzy's mother isn't going too good, but being fundamentally broken can help him build both Sam and himself from the ground up. The worst thing that can happen to Sam is being punished of the crime of being young and reckless by being taken away from the heartless (and namely, faceless) Child Services (Tilda Swinton). By contrast, the worst thing to happen to Suzy could be to stick with what her parents tell her, and wind up in a similarly unhappy marriage where the only thing to discuss with one's spouse is work matters. During the course of the film the erstwhile rebels start to awake sympathy from all around the cast, fed up with their rat race lives.

The Eagle Scouts are basically The Dirty Dozen or any other war movie unit.

As always, Anderson places a lot of attention to seemingly minute details. That era's record players, cheap romance novels, and scout supplies such as maps and swiss army knives play an important role, as does the will of exploration and to create art. Anderson's melancholic but absurdly silly take works perfectly for this bittersweet but hope-filled tale.

★★★★

Crulic – The Path to Beyond (Crulic - drumul spre dincolo, Romania/Poland)
Director: Anca Damian

This innovative animated movie is fact-based, but not quite a documentary, since it has no actual interviews. Some archive material is intervowen with the animation, though. Claudio Crulic, a 33-year-old Romanian man withers away and dies of hunger in a Polish prison. The man starts to narrate his life story from beyond the grave. The Kafkaesque story has a missing wallet in the wrong country lead to ungrounded accusations of stealing credit cards. Crulic has to endure cruel mistreatment from authorities.

The innovative film runs with a quick pace. The animation makes photos and pictures (from crude sketches to beautiful watercolor- and pastelle paintings) come to life. The vivid, constantly switching style is smartly made to service the story as well. The gross injustice faced by a single Romanian may be told from only one perspective, but it still makes the viewer ponder whether the European justice system really works as well with everyone.

 ★★★ 1/2

Monsieur Lazhar (Canada)
Director: Philippe Falardeau

This drama in the French language was one of the Oscar nominees for Best Foreign Film. And rightly so. It is a uplifting tale of coping with loss, shock, and sadness. In a Montréal Elementary School, the teacher of a class of small children commits suicide during the break in the classroom. Afterwards, when the principal is trying to find a suitable substitute to teach the class, the Algerian immigrant Bachir Lazhar (Mohammed Fellag) arrives in her office and convinces her to hire him on the spot. Lazhar wants to help the little children cope with the death of a close person, but this enthusiasm also has other reasons not entirely altruistic. For Lazhar's own tragic past also features loss, and Lazhar needs the children to teach him as well as he will them.

The slowly progressing film manages to tell about inner turmoils very subtly. The film emphasizes how unpredictable life is without spoonfeeding the audience and stops to consider the emotions of it's characters. Fellag in particular is excellent in his multi-dimensional portrayal of a broken man, who nevertheless attempts to keep his sunny side up and dearly loves the children he's teaching. Almost as good are the child actors who range from the class clown to the troublemakers and the A+ scoring smart girls.

★★★★

Anton Corbijn Inside Out (The Netherlands/Germany/UK/Italy/Sweden)
Director: Klaartje Quirijns

The documentary about the legendary Dutch portrait photographer-come film director takes us to the life of Anton Corbijn. The crew follows him around in his daily duties, from collecting a prestigious photo award, to doing a photoshoot with U2, to seeing how the photos are improved on a computer, to showing finished pictures to Lou Reed and Metallica, to popping by at the film shoot of The American, and later, the red carpet premiere. But considering how much glitz, glamour and Hollywood there is in that sentence, the film makes it clear that it is about a person rather than a star.

Corbijn may lay on his couch, trying to take a nap while chatting about his youth and family. Family members are also interviewed, including Corbijn's sister who gives a teary-eyed testimony while cooking for both of their families. Also some rock stars Corbijn has built his career shooting get a chance to talk about him, most notably Bono and Depeche Mode's Martin Gore. The film, however intimate it aims to be, only manages to scratch the surface when discussing Corbijn, and there's actually little new to learn about him. So rock stars think he does great work, big deal. Anyone can figure that without the film. Like any artist, however, it may be better not to explain too deeply about his past, inspirations and conception. The mystery is more interesting.

★★★

Lawless (a.k.a. The Wettest County, USA)
Director: John Hillcoat

John Hillcoat, particularly partnered with his screenwriter/composer Nick Cave, is a good filmmaker when depicting western-like films that take place in wide outbacks where the law is only practiced through individual's morality. That's why it was intriguing to see what the pair could do with a Prohibition-era gangster tale. It turns out, a fine-looking gangster tale that has plenty of good scenes, but as a whole feels lacking and pointless.

The Bondurant Brothers, Jack (Shia La Beouf), Forrest (Tom Hardy) and Howard (Jason Clarke) run a successful, and ever-widening, bootlegging operation in Franklin County, Virginia. The boys dream of a luxurious life and openly admire a notorious gangster, Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman). Forrest in particular has both the brains and the daring to get their moonshine to thirsty people, and bribing the police to do so. As they gain success, the boys also start romances, never taking the easy road in. Jack tries to woo a mormon girl Bertha (Mia Wasikowska) and Jack falls for the hard-luck waitress Maggie (Jessica Chastain). But while  the boys take more and more risks and get more and more successful, it all happens much to the chagrin of FBI agent Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce). The obsessed, unrelenting Fed wants to see The Bondurants dead and their operations wiped out off the face of the Earth. And he isn't afraid to to get brutal and kill a lot of people to achive this.

The biggest problem with the film may be that it's characters are so one note. Pearce in particular is so evil and seething with hatred all the time that his performance borders on comical, he's a true pantomime villain. Oldman is only in the film for two short scenes. Of the main cast members, Hardy does the best work, while La Beouf is as wood-faced as ever. There's still little to make the viewer care about the film's protagonists and their survival. The script of the film feels fractured and is laced with a poor representation of time passing. For the life of me, I couldn't tell whether the film takes place within one month, a year, a couple, or the whole prohibition. The period setting is carefully built, and looks absolutely fantastic. But just admiring the film's look doesn't quite cut it when it often is so boring to watch.

★★ 1/2


Several films I saw were also on the programme of Love & Anarchy so I will return to them when the time comes. Until then, Adios Amoebas!

EKEK --2/0/1/3-- 2012

This year's EKEK festival had to be the toughest ever. Toughest in the sense that it was hard, excruciating and painful to sit all through the night. The festival runs by the principle that no member of the audience has any idea what films they are going to be showing until the film starts. That is also how the organizers are able to totally mess with the audience and their expectations. There's always been such an element to this festival, but this year it came on a little too thick. Then again, as the festival will always be held in the tiny Kino Engel theatre, which was packed as it was, there isn't much room for more audience in the following years. It is a one-of-a-kind experience, but mostly not in a good way. So heed this warning, never go to EKEK festival. Leave it to the professional scum watchers, like me.

Shoot (1976)
Director: Harvey Hart

The festival began promisingly with this satire about all-American bloodthirstiness and paranoia. And the movie actually comes from Canada. As the thing with satire is, even though it can be as broad and heavy-handed as in this, there were several people among the audience who didn't get what the film was aiming for and accused it of being fascist. Which it is certainly not.

A five-men hunting crew, featuring the leader, a tough army Major Rex (Cliff Robertson) his friendly underling Lou (Ernerst Borgnine) and the veterinarian Zeke (Henry Silva) go for a weekend in the woods to find some animals to kill. They can't find any, and talk trash and walk the woods in their boredom. Suddenly, they happen across a river and note another hunting party at the other shore. After a while at looking at each other, the other crew opens fire on them. On the ensuing gun battle, Rex's crew manages to kill one of their attackers, even though one of their own is wounded. Feeling worried that they might be accused of murder, they decide to keep the whole trip a secret. But Rex also starts to worry that the other crew might be out for revenge, and decides it's best to strike at them before they can strike back.

The film uses a lot of time lingering on the paranoia. It is not necessarily a bad thing, since it builds up to the ridiculous overkill that is the film's wonderfully bonkers finale. A ridiculous attack leads to ridiculous paranoia at history repeating itself, it seems. The leisurely time-use also allows the filmmakers to take a good look at how much of the manliness of these characters is defined by guns. When hunting has gone wrong, they abuse their power at their jobs, at training new recruits, at their private investigations, and turn down sex-hungry women who throw themselves at them. When masculinity has failed Rex doesn't seem to have the appetite for sex any more, in or out of his marriage. He also finds himself in the position where he could be interchangeable with his deceased enemy, since the widow would be more than happy to jump his bone.

Most of the characters displayed here are war veterans, which explains why they have the condition to use force and dismiss all other alternatives. The war brings every one of them issues that cause them to have a deep urge for a revanche for a fight that ended more or less in a tie. The only character who tries to speak reason, Lou, is himself on the fence and is horrified of the idea of being shut out of his ring of friends. The others also strip away his masculinity for his attempt to solve problems at other ways than violence. Eventually he will follow their lead, even though he feels it's the wrong thing to do.

The film's punchline may be seen as undermining all of these satirical characterizations. But I see it as a natural end result in relying in eat-or-be-eaten -thinking, war tactics and arms races in places where they don't belong. The fate of one side could have as easily happened to the other as well. After all, both sides are real mirror images of each other.

★★★ 1/2

Risky Business (1983)
Director: Paul Brickman

Another purely American way of thinking is the one of free enterprises and anyone's ability to build a business around the area he knows best. Brickman's film has also some satirical undertones concerning this, but mostly it sees that pimping is just as good a business as any. And the right use of the right kind of pimping gets one ahead in life. I can see the thought process to choosing the young Tom Cruise to play the lead than in a mixture of yuppie sleaziness and whiny rich teenager worried he might get in trouble. The film is mostly remembered for the scene in the very beginning where the Cruiser dances in his underwear to Bob Seger, but the film does offer more. Much, much more.

So awkward teenager Joel Goodsen (Cruise) gets to enjoy a week house sitting while his parents are on vacation. Joel is a bit of a dweeb and his nerdy friends accuse that he can't relax nor have fun. Joel's annoying "friend" Miles (Curtis Armstrong) calls an escort service for a hooker for his pal, and refuses to give Joel the number to cancel the appointment. Since Joel doesn't know how to use the phone's redial button, he is confronted later that night by a 300-pound transvestite. Luckily, the guy's somewhat understanding and while taking off with his food money, he gives Joel the number to a higher class call girl, Lana (Rebecca De Mornay). Anxious to pay for booty, Joel hires her, who in turn takes a fancy to Joel's house and it's vast riches. The next morning steals a valuable glass egg (!) which Joel's mother treasures. In order to get it back, Joel promises a safe haven for Lana and her other hooker friends from the abusive pimp Guido (Joe Pantoliano). Luckily Joel finds out that many of his loser friends are willing to pay to have crabs and spend 20 seconds of bliss with prostitutes. This makes him toy with the idea of presenting his pimping business at his high school's Young Enterprisers class. High concept 80's filmmaking, everybody!

The cheesy 80's soundtrack and the neon lights make the film seem so cheesy by today's standards, it's quite hard to evaluate whether this was meant to be some sort of a satire about yuppie culture. There seems to be some irony at least in the fact that the driving force during this film, it's MacGuffin, is an item that's basically useless but high in value just because, an expensive glass egg. Everything's for sale, and you can buy the woman of your choice just as much as any status symbol in the superficial 80's world. getting ahead in life is Joel's main concern and he begins to learn that he the vices and desires he has are by no means closing the doors of opportunity but rather open them more widely if he plays his cards right. Phil Collins is played on the background as a subway bum has a drink and watches Joel and Lana getting it on. Better trashing of Michael Mann-like music video aesthetics I haven't come across.

I'm not sure whether Tom Cruise is a good fit to play an awkward teenager that's constantly in a heap of trouble and losing his mind over it. The dude's not much of a comedian. The unlikability of the dumb-but-sleazy lead character, the unsure stance on the satire scale and the overlong length keep this from being a true classic. But that fateful night, it was one of the very best.

★★★ 1/2

...and the fifth horseman is Fear (...a páty jezdec je Strach, 1965)
Director: Zbynek Brynych

Intriguingly, we were offered some genuine European black and white neorealist treats this year. Patrons expecting sheer trash from the festival were surprised. But sadly, it also came at least one movie too late, as it was already around 2 or 3 in the morning. This is the sort of film that requires patience and careful observation. And I slept for the most of it.

But I can still fill in the basics. This is a Czechoslovakian film that deals with the time of the Nazi occupation. A jewish doctor living in a block of flats tries to keep his identity a secret and to get along in an oppressive environment. Thus he is forced to squeal on some of his neighbors who are breaking rules to the Gestapo. Not even so subtly, Brynych likens the past with all their spying on regular people and oppression to the present where Soviet-controlled Communists were in charge of their country. In the final montage, pictures from the 40's switch to the Prague landscape in the 60's. I've since tried to track down the film to do a proper review, but to no avail. I hope I will get another chance to see this film.

Joyful Noise (2012)
Director: Todd Graff

In the WTF-pile was this gospel musical about a church choir trying to keep their home town together even though the evil economy closes down businesses and such. So they must praise God so loud as to win the national competition for the best choreographed church choir in the USA. The film has clearly been made for God-fearing Midwestern Americans, which is why it's actually quite stupid that the leftist liberal European such as me would then make fun of the movie. But let me say that I would've never watched this (unless they paid me of course) if it wasn't for those crooked program planners at this festival. I find it quite unbelievable that this could ever find an audience in Finland, when even The Muppets was denied from our silver screens. For shame.

The choir's journey to the finals is off to a bad start as their leader (Kris Kristofferson has the good sense to leave early and take his paycheck on the way out) kicks the bucket during one of their concerts. This leads to a bitch-fight of leadership over the mother-hen-like sassy mama Vi Rose (Queen Latifah) who wouldn't change a thing with their outdated show, and the rich heiress of the old leader, G.G. Sparrow (Parton). Sparrow's grandson Randy Garrity (Jeremy Jordan) has just come to visit her, and luckily he happens to be an aspiring musician and dancer with some hip ideas for their gospel show. The ideas include replacing old-time Sly Stone with the modern, fresh-faced music of Michael Jackson. Randy is also randy over Vi Rose's hot daughter Olivia, and, GASP, would also be willing to have pre-marital kissing and naked-hugging with her. Vi Rose opposes Randy's involvement fiercely, but since they see the show they are up against, she has no choice but to give the boy a shot.

The actual choir shows aren't that bad, but I do prefer the original R&B songs rather than their overacted a cappella God-praising versions. The songs are about sex, dammit! Latifah isn't my cup of tea as a leading lady in any case, and here she's straight up on bitch mode from beginning to end. Dolly Parton on the other hand looks like a frog tied up to two balloons that's had her face replaced with linoleum. Close-ups of her mug fill me with more fear and dread than any horror film I've seen during the last 6 months. So fierce does she look, that her character even has to explain that it's God's will for her to have discount plastic surgeries as much as she wants. The creepiest scene has her looking out the window while another version of her is dancing in the moonlight with the ghost of her dead husband. Yes. That is Christian, all right. While the film is on the very edge of limits to my withstand, luckily there are also some nuggets of insanity to be found among all the unbearable quirkiness and spunky we-love-God attitude.

For one, the heavy-handed way the movie scoops up various issues and tries to win audience sympathy by shaking them at their faces is incredibly pandering. Vi Rose's son Walter has a dilemma of not being able to believe in himself, but the friendship with Randy will help him come out of his shelter and believe in his skills. This worn-out cliché isn't enough by itself, so Walter also has Asperger's syndrome and reminds everyone in every scene how hard that makes life for him. The dialogue is aimed at stupid people, which is why they explain things in a hilarious manner from the ground up. Thus, the actors have to speak out lines such as:
"I'm sure worried about my job at the family hardware store".

The best thing by far in this atrocity is an absolutely hilarious sub-plot about the love life of a divorced overweight black woman Earla (Angela Grovey). She finds new love in the feeble fellow choirmember Mr. Hsu. The problem is that Hsu doesn't manage to survive a single night of passion with Earla, and is found dead in the morning. Cue one of the film's sudden cuts to a funeral service. Earla starts to worry she's never going to find another husband because the reputation of her fucking Asians to their deaths has started to walk around. Also that God hates her because she had premarital sex. But luckily while she's in the bathroom before the final concert, another feeble Asian comes to knock on the door and confess he's been stalking her. He would also want to know her even better. After checking he hasn't any problems with his heart or blood pressure, Earla decides to marry him on the spot. So, the film and my sanity both end in a preposterously odd wedding scene. Good show. Cough.

★

Return of Bruce (Zhong lie Jing wu men, 1978)
Director: Joseph Velasco 

Some all-around average Bruceploitation was thrown in for the small hours in the morning. The funniest thing about this one was that the identity of the movie was left a mystery for the audience even while watching it, since the print had no opening titles in it. The film is also known as My 12 Kung Fu Kicks, which sounds like one of those How to-videos. You can't learn kung fu by watching Bruceploitation movies, silly. But it is easier to replicate the moves in these than trying to learn from the real Bruce Lee, since his moves are often too fast for the cameras to accurately capture.

There's not much to say about this, as it recycles the same basic western plot most of these movies do. Kung fu mastering young man Wong Lung (Bruce Le, starring here inexplicably under the alias Kenneth Rivero) arrives to a town ruled by criminals. In this case it is Manila, the harbor capital of the Philippines (where the film was consequently produced). Wong tries to find work and befriends some natives. In this case it is a fat little boy called Piggy. Wong suffers some hardships and witnesses bullying, but he isn't intimidated by the threatening gangsters and teaches them a lesson or two with his martial arts skillz. Wong just tries to get along, but the furious and vengeful gangsters keep sending worse and worse threats at him. Finally, when the bad guys threaten his friends, Wong must head off to a final showdown to a bamboo house filled with the most deadly martial arts assassins.

The film begins more comedic, and we are treated for instance many jokes at the expense of the cowardly mob captain who runs like a girl and acts as stereotypically homosexual as possible. It is also clear that Wong isn't fit to work in a hotel, as he accidentally assaults guests during his morning yoga routine. The vicious gangsters here are also sex traffickers, so we get plenty of scenes with Wong acting as a knight in shining armour, saving damsels in distress, such as female police officers who can't handle their cases by themselves, and caged women and such. One can't claim this film is progressive in any way, and it rubs the viewer's face with its sexism. As is usual, the final fights are stretched for long and waiting for the movie to end to go to the bathroom is a nightmare. Every time one figures Wong has killed the final boss, another one appears behind the corner. Surprisingly, the film's ending is quite cynical, and, in the case of the clinging and annoying Piggy at least, refreshingly brutal at long last.

★★ 1/2

The Raven (2012)
Director: James McTeigue 

I had hopes of gleeful insanity for this film, but was also not at all surprised to see it tank in the US and being denied a theatrical release (outside this showing) in Finland, although it already had a hefty advertizement campaign. For it is a moronic film that some studio executive might have easily described as Sherlock Holmes (2009) meets Se7en. Yes, it is a film about the poet Edgar Allan Poe trying to catch a serial killer who has been butchering people in the same manners as found in Poe's texts. A suitably dumb high concept, then. But that alone doesn't make a good movie.

The film opens explaining that it will showcase the previously untold final days of the legendary horror author. Poe (played by John Cusack in manners clearly trademarked to Nicolas Cage) is a penniless and washed up nobody in Baltimore. He attempts to cash in on his more famous works by trying to milk a bartender for a free drink and asking for advance payment for the newspaper that's been publishing his work. He also has eyes for the fair young Emily (Alice Eve), even though her father (Brendan Gleeson) not as enthusiastic about him. Poe promises to marry her when he gets the money to do so. But cruel murders and their investigation bring Detective Fields (Luke Evans) and the rest of the Baltimore police to his door. Since the murderer has clearly been inspired by the deaths in Poe's horror stories, Fields clearly needs the author himself in order to think one step ahead of the slasher. But Poe's involvement also means that those close to him are also in danger and Emily gets kidnapped by the mysterious ripper.

Not even Roger Corman was as ungrateful for Poe's texts as the makers of this movie. The fundamental misunderstanding at core here is that Poe's stories are terrifying because they have so much violence, splatter and such in them. Nothing could actually be further from the truth. Because the screenwriters seem to have only read Wikipedia synopsis's of Poe's stories, for instance the pendulum from The Pit and the Pendulum goes down in 20 seconds to slice a guy in half. There is no pit around the machine at all. The film clearly isn't much for slowly building tension or inner monologues, and is in effect, just another run-off-the-mill race against time where people spurn exposition while running to the next scene. It doesn't help that all characters save Poe in this film are so bland, the producers must order them by the dozens from the stock character catalogue. There isn't any suspense in who gets killed next and the identity of the killer is a mind-bogglingly dumb and indifferent choice.

The first few minutes of the film with Poe ranting drunkenly at the bar are somewhat entertaining, if only because Cusack is too good an actor for dreck such as this. The rest of the movie, though, he phones it in as hard as he can, and at the same time, all the small bits of character-building for Poe as a character also vanish off. In the end, he becomes just another down-on-his-luck hero who must save the day by solving clues. Yawn.

★ 1/2

Novelist (Päätalo, 2008)
Director: Hannu Kahakorpi 

The final film of the festival proved to be a little too much even for me, and not only because I had seen it before. Still, I don't think The Novelist is a particularly bad film, just kind of un-noteworthy and aimed at a completely different audience than me. It is a Finnish countryside saga if there ever was one, with a grumpy, little-speaking lead man, some dick jokes and loads and loads of footage from forests and nature. The film is based on popular author Kalle Päätalo's life and books (which are all about his own life), which have been published in 26 volumes, each one hunderds and hundreds of pages long. That is why it's good that the makers had the sense to cut them down to a mere 1,5 hours.

Päätalo (Kai Lehtinen) has been dreaming to become a writer since he was a small boy. Grown up he's a farmer and later a building commissioner that spends his evenings trying to come up with something to say on paper. He has a wife (Susanna Anteroinen) of whom he's very fond. From time to time Päätalo has to go away from his native Taivalkoski to big cities to negotiate about publishing of his books. He starts to suspect his wife is having an affair, but with no evidence backing it up. There's not much more story in this one, but the real-life Päätalo could stretch the story to about a million pages. Basically, it is a film about how low a self-esteem the Finnish man usually has, particularly in the countryside.

The film is intercut with the phase in Finland's history when the agriculture started to give way to urbanization after World War II, and new, humanistic job opportunities began to arise. Countryside and cities are contrasted every time Päätalo goes to a meeting with a publisher in the city. He doesn't fit well in the urban landscape and usually takes off to a restaurant for a drink after the meeting. Problem is, he doesn't seem to fit into the countryside either, which makes him angry. As a Finnish biography movie it is sort of refreshing how little ass-kissing of the subject is on display. Päätalo is a deeply flawed man, on the crossroads of his ambitions and inferiority complexes. Kai Lehtinen does steady good work in bringing a characterization of a basic Finnish male to screen. He's grumpy, talks little, and in his confusion resorts to booze and anger. The main problem is that we Finns have seen these sorts of stories a billion times before and foreign people couldn't care less.

★★ 1/2 

Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

I figured it would be a good choice to do my first proper review in this blog on a film which combines a lot of stuff I like - kickass over-the-top action, dry observational character-based comedy and a sweet and life-like romance.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a quite good movie, despite it being hard trying to juggle so much stuff. But if anyone could handle it it was Edgar Wright. Wright has proven himself to be able to direct with a fast, music video -like style, of pretty normal and mundane things. He is also able to make symphatetic comedy characters that are properly fleshed out.

Scott Pilgrim is based on a comic-book by Bryan Lee O'Malley. It deals with young hearts clashing while the colorful imagery references video games and manga comics. I see that the OTT style of the comic represents on how the characters feel their (love) life is larger than life. It's how it is with under-25 young people. In this universe characters can do basically anything: crash the moon with the earth, turn people into quarters or make sonic blasts with guitars. Usually this sort of magic requires either love or music, the two biggest mysteries and the hardest to properly explain of all the things humans have created.

The titular character is a slacker in his early twenties. He's just met a new girlfriend, the 17-year-old Knives (Ellen Wong). He introduces her to punk music with his band, Sex Bob-Omb. But as their relationship progresses Scott grows anxious as he's dreaming about a mysterious woman on rollerskates, Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). When he finally meets her, he decides that she is the woman of his dreams and gives everything to be with her. But besides having to break up with his prior girlfriend, this means he has to battle seven bitter old flames of Ramona.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out Wright is a perfect director for this source material. It's hard trying to come up with a word for his visual style that doesn't refer to comic books. After all, comics can have vastly different visual styles. But the movie Scott Pilgrim uses a lot of styles usually attributed to the comics media, so there's that. Sound effects are displayed by text, split-screens resemble comic panels, the color scheme is bright and colorful etc. It's worth noting that not everything is copied from the comic book's visuals (like in say, Sin City). Rather, Wright creates his own visual that utilizes much but not everything from O'Malley's original black-and-white drawings. It owes also much to various video games (such as Street Fighter, Devil May Cry and Mortal Kombat) and to anime movies. All in all, this style works better for film than the straight copying of the comic book's style and dynamic would. But there are still a couple of cues straight from O'Malley's book that work just as good on the big screen. I loved the awkward meet of Scott's two girlfriends and the gratitious zooming in the film as much as in the comic.

As I've stated, the editing is fast and furious, even more so than in Wright's previous movies. It is fitting that the soundtrack consists of fast and furious punk rock music as well. I really, really love the film's Sex Bob-Omb songs, composed by the alternative-wonderboy Beck. Another great one is the song played by The Clash At Demonhead, the in-movie band of Scott's and Ramona's evil exes. I can't wait to get the soundtrack. Luckily, there are currently places on the internet where one can listen to it for free! And I'm doing just that. This music rocks, and hard!

O'Malley's story's strength is his large cast of characters, all of whch are well-written and believable in that universe and many of them multi-dimensional. The characters have been formed by their histories, which Wright only has time to subtly reference. Sometimes he uses O'Malley's illustrations to do this.
Wright has chosen his supporting cast well, as even with few lines, they bring out the same characters I fell in love with in the comic book. There are a lot of favorites from the wise-and-goofy-at-the-same-time gay roommate Wallace, the angry redheaded Kim or Scott's ditzy little sister. Or, of course any of the evil exes, with which especially part-time superheroes Brandon Routh and Chris Evans seem to have a blast with. Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are both good, but overshadowed by the frankly brilliant supporting cast. However, their relationship works in the film too, and one can reflect one's own heartbreaks and loves on the screen. This is a feat only films that have characters one can truly identify with, can have.

We in Finland are not that familiar with O'Malley's comic book. Most of my co-workers had not heard of it. I myself ordered the three first books from the web to prepare for this movie. The movie seems to work well for people who don't know the story beforehand too. I myself am still glad I read some of the book, as it fleshes out some relationships and drama as I had a better idea of the character's motivations. The film is aimed for an audience from teens to mid-twenties (more if they are really childish). Many people older from that probably won't understand anything from the kinetic style, or have forgotten what it feels like to have heartache at this age. For us that do, and geek out over the stuff this references, this is warmly recommended. It has a quite tight competition from Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables and Eat, Pray, Love, but like Scott himself, his film might prove out to be quite the fighter.

★★★★

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD
USA, UK, Canada, 2010
Director: Edgar Wright
Screenplay: Edgar Wright, Michael Bacall, based on the comic book by Bryan Lee O'Malley