Title: Klassikko (“The Classic”) |
Release Date: 2000 |
Nationality and Language: |
Running time: 90 min |
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Distributor and Production Company: Sputnik |
Director; Writer: Karl Vaananen based on novel by Katl Hotkainen |
Producer: Timo Salminen |
Cast: Janne Hyytiainen, Martti Suosato |
Technical: |
Relevance to HPPUB site: writing |
Review: Well, this is a delicious
satire for literary writers. The film starts when a publisher asks one of its
more “sensitive” authors, whose books please the literary critics but “don’t
sell well,” to write a personal diary as a pseudo-novel. That’s a curious assignment, because
literary agents and publishers in the There’s a lot of bizarre perspective here, like the idea of writers “working” for publishers. It really doesn’t work that way! Another Finnish knockout from the Minneapolis-St. Paul 2002 International Film Festival is Joki (The River), from Metronome (Finnish Distributor), 2001, directed by Rooka Poulsen, with Sanna Hietata, Antti Ikkala, Jyri Ojansivu. Several interlocking stories move back in time, in Quinten Tarrentino style. The “role model” young people are striking. A teenage boy prevents a depressed, jilted mother from drowning her son and then herself (recalling certain tragic crimes in this country in Texas and South Caroline), while another teenager visits his lover (along a paper delivery route) before proving his virility to straight boys in a bungee jumping competition, with a pause for one of the gentlest gay male love scenes ever filmed (with no actual sex). The blue collar other teens and various other older characters seem to be unraveling in the Finnish welfare state, down to the old man demanding to die with dignity in a nursing home as his wife stays by his side. A technician gets sick at work in a paper mill, a scene that impresses the viewer with the overwhelming din of this well-paying blue collar job. Yet Finnish society looks grand, pristine and earthy yet so high tech as almost to resembled Liquid Sky or at least another planet. Stunning Todd-AO photography and digital sound track, the very top of the line technically. This one belongs in Miramax’s offerings in this country. (Matt, Ben, and Chirs Moore: you did screen this one, didn’t you?) Buy your airline tickets on Icelandic.
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