This was a movie of which I kept on reading the reviews again and again; and despite it being played at Film Museum and not at Pathe theatres I decided to give this movie a try. The reasons were many in the reviews it was compared with Pulp Fiction, it had several parallel stories running in the movie and lastly it had already won 17 awards internationally in various categories. I was eager to see this movie and due to my off day at Greenpeace I decided to make myself happy by going and seeing this movie.
It is a story based in Finland. I think it reflected the current life of people in general drugs, crime, sex, anger, anguish, fear and guilt. Every emotion was captured brilliantly in the movie. There are several characters and stories interwoven but a few characters come back in the latter half making a link with the beginning sequences and that takes the story forward.
The story is about two friends one of whom is computer geek and the other is a drug addict son of an abusive father. The drug addict boy trades a Euro 500 note printed by his friend to buy back his music system, and in returns gets huge change of cash back to buy more drugs. The trading of Euro 500 note continues to bizarre events from the shop trader to an auto mechanic cum robber to a car dealer to a vacuum cleaner salesman to a prostitute to a police officer then to her family and children. How the beginning of a small thing creates a chain reaction that lead even after 5 years of that first incident to a depressing last note which I won't reveal here.
The direction is excellent. The character development in the movie is first rate. The character that sticks on your mind even after you come out of the movie is of the vacuum cleaner sales person. All the departments of the movie are handled nicely. Here I would like to make a couple of critical comments. First, during the sequence of one event leading to another I felt that the coincidences were too rapid and forced. But this screenplay writing error is pardon when one sees the whole canvas. Second, the trail of one character leading to another somehow leads back to the first two characters and that again I found to be a forced decision by the screen play writer. There was no need to have the same characters showing up again when there are different causes leading to different effects in such a big city.
But after saying that it is an excellent movie! It is a dark movie with quite a few sex scenes. The characters are having the black, white and gray shades and emotions that change from facing different situation which is brilliantly captured by the director.
A top rate movie! It has all the ingredients of becoming a cult movie. I hope that only such movies should not become and achieve the status of cult movies and win lots of awards, because without crime, sex, violence, drugs etc. too one can make fantastic movies Bicycle Thieves and Pather Panchali are its prime examples only thing is that they were a long time back and times are changing and I think movies are reflecting the current times.
