I had never squinted my eyes in utter disbelief for more than an hour until I saw Black Ice. The plot lacked fluency, the pacing was completely off, and the delivery of the film's big punch line was like a glancing blow from a white-belt.
The premise of Black Ice is this: Saara (Outi Mäenpää) finds out that her husband, Leo (Martti Suosalo), is cheating on her. She seeks out Leo's mistress, who turns out to be one of his art students. Saara befriends the young woman, Tuuli (Ria Kataja), and grows close to her. The story follows Saara in her quest for revenge upon both parties.
The main thing I can commend Black Ice for is the acting. Outi Mäenpää was almost always excellent as Saara. Her expressive face and especially telling eyes caught my attention and held it, as I could always tell when she was plotting her next move but never knew what it would be. Outi certainly deserved her 2008 Jussi award for best actress, and the cinematographer did justice by focusing intently on her bust (sculpturally speaking, that is, from the shoulders up). Occasionally I felt that Outi slipped into stretches of overacting, where for a short period of time her facial expressions and eyebrow wiggles would make me rub my own brow in skepticism. And her clothed full-body shots were painful to watch, often featuring spastic dance moves and hurried, artificial blocking.
The musical score featured prominently, most likely because it was an original soundtrack composed by a member of Apocalyptica. I often caught myself wondering if Eicca Toppinen had written the music for a separate film – or perhaps there was a sound-mixing mistake. The music projected an intensity that was seldom there – Tuuli cuts and glues wood for an art assignment while viola riffs and upbeat Bond-esque percussion attempt to convince us that what we are seeing is actually important. There were times when the score was spot-on, like when Saara stalks Tuuli to the sound of haunting disharmonic cello notes, but these moments were few and far between.
Saara is shown to be a master manipulator and an extremely intelligent woman. She thinks several steps ahead of the game. For example, she hides Tuuli's bike after their first martial arts class in order to drive the girl home and get some information out of her. Saara later makes a call from Tuuli's phone that single-handedly accomplishes several important goals while adding to the film's general muck and confusion. But Saara drags extraneous factors into the story she attempts to weave, which leads to messy situations – Lea (Ilkka's wife), the woman whom Tuuli thinks is Leo's wife, is led to believe that her husband is cheating on her, when in reality Lea and Ilkka are not involved in any sort of sexual scandal Got it? I sure hope so, because you'll only have a few seconds to comprehend what's going on before Black Ice launches into another giant complication.
There is an intensely close physical proximity between Saara and Tuuli, and the mediated violence of their taekwondo sessions is the pressure release valve for any building tension. When Saara first joins the martial arts class, she feels the need to study Tuuli and so keeps her eyes open and watchful during the post-training meditation. But not more than a few sessions later, Saara is shown with closed eyes and a comfortable smile, signaling her acceptance and understanding of Tuuli – and possibly the beginning of a growing sexual desire for the girl. Near the film's ending, after Tuuli learns she has been manipulated, Saara is the one closing her eyes and crying from fear while Tuuli stares her down murderously. It's interesting that Saara is a student of Tuuli's, and Tuuli a student of Leo's – is there a hierarchy? Does the order of teaching even make sense? I can't figure it out.
My favorite scene in the movie was the one where Saara says, "I've been thinking far too much about how to kill my ex's girlfriend. How I could hurt her I want to cut her open. Destroy her" – while Tuuli, the very subject of this speech, massages Saara's shoulders! That dialogue actually foreshadows the movie's ending, when Saara literally cuts Tuuli open during an emergency surgery. And she has ultimately destroyed Tuuli, who wanted an abortion, but now must single-handedly raise her child while also completing her work as a student. It was the only satisfying connection that I could find in this scrambled mix-up of a film.
But ultimately, I just couldn't bring myself to believe many of the things that I saw – and this was certainly an attempt to tell a believable story. Several questions lingered in my fuddled mind while the credits rolled: Why didn't Leo follow the road back home, like Tuuli had suggested? How does Tuuli's developing baby survive multiple kicks and a Jackie-Chan-like fall down a flight of stairs? What did that tattoo mean? Most importantly, how on earth is Saara accepted into college parties? I'm probably reading into Black Ice too much, and finding only enough to further perturb my confused mind.
The premise of Black Ice is this: Saara (Outi Mäenpää) finds out that her husband, Leo (Martti Suosalo), is cheating on her. She seeks out Leo's mistress, who turns out to be one of his art students. Saara befriends the young woman, Tuuli (Ria Kataja), and grows close to her. The story follows Saara in her quest for revenge upon both parties.
The main thing I can commend Black Ice for is the acting. Outi Mäenpää was almost always excellent as Saara. Her expressive face and especially telling eyes caught my attention and held it, as I could always tell when she was plotting her next move but never knew what it would be. Outi certainly deserved her 2008 Jussi award for best actress, and the cinematographer did justice by focusing intently on her bust (sculpturally speaking, that is, from the shoulders up). Occasionally I felt that Outi slipped into stretches of overacting, where for a short period of time her facial expressions and eyebrow wiggles would make me rub my own brow in skepticism. And her clothed full-body shots were painful to watch, often featuring spastic dance moves and hurried, artificial blocking.
The musical score featured prominently, most likely because it was an original soundtrack composed by a member of Apocalyptica. I often caught myself wondering if Eicca Toppinen had written the music for a separate film – or perhaps there was a sound-mixing mistake. The music projected an intensity that was seldom there – Tuuli cuts and glues wood for an art assignment while viola riffs and upbeat Bond-esque percussion attempt to convince us that what we are seeing is actually important. There were times when the score was spot-on, like when Saara stalks Tuuli to the sound of haunting disharmonic cello notes, but these moments were few and far between.
Saara is shown to be a master manipulator and an extremely intelligent woman. She thinks several steps ahead of the game. For example, she hides Tuuli's bike after their first martial arts class in order to drive the girl home and get some information out of her. Saara later makes a call from Tuuli's phone that single-handedly accomplishes several important goals while adding to the film's general muck and confusion. But Saara drags extraneous factors into the story she attempts to weave, which leads to messy situations – Lea (Ilkka's wife), the woman whom Tuuli thinks is Leo's wife, is led to believe that her husband is cheating on her, when in reality Lea and Ilkka are not involved in any sort of sexual scandal Got it? I sure hope so, because you'll only have a few seconds to comprehend what's going on before Black Ice launches into another giant complication.
There is an intensely close physical proximity between Saara and Tuuli, and the mediated violence of their taekwondo sessions is the pressure release valve for any building tension. When Saara first joins the martial arts class, she feels the need to study Tuuli and so keeps her eyes open and watchful during the post-training meditation. But not more than a few sessions later, Saara is shown with closed eyes and a comfortable smile, signaling her acceptance and understanding of Tuuli – and possibly the beginning of a growing sexual desire for the girl. Near the film's ending, after Tuuli learns she has been manipulated, Saara is the one closing her eyes and crying from fear while Tuuli stares her down murderously. It's interesting that Saara is a student of Tuuli's, and Tuuli a student of Leo's – is there a hierarchy? Does the order of teaching even make sense? I can't figure it out.
My favorite scene in the movie was the one where Saara says, "I've been thinking far too much about how to kill my ex's girlfriend. How I could hurt her I want to cut her open. Destroy her" – while Tuuli, the very subject of this speech, massages Saara's shoulders! That dialogue actually foreshadows the movie's ending, when Saara literally cuts Tuuli open during an emergency surgery. And she has ultimately destroyed Tuuli, who wanted an abortion, but now must single-handedly raise her child while also completing her work as a student. It was the only satisfying connection that I could find in this scrambled mix-up of a film.
But ultimately, I just couldn't bring myself to believe many of the things that I saw – and this was certainly an attempt to tell a believable story. Several questions lingered in my fuddled mind while the credits rolled: Why didn't Leo follow the road back home, like Tuuli had suggested? How does Tuuli's developing baby survive multiple kicks and a Jackie-Chan-like fall down a flight of stairs? What did that tattoo mean? Most importantly, how on earth is Saara accepted into college parties? I'm probably reading into Black Ice too much, and finding only enough to further perturb my confused mind.