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Hytti nro 6 (2021)
Very good acting, weak plot
This Finnish-Russian co-production garnered a first prize at Cannes and very good reviews on IMdB and Rotten tomatoes. The plot is weak. A young Finnish woman, an archeology student living in a rarefied intellectual atmosphere in Moscow of the nineties (which includes a woman lover), decides to go on a interminable train trip to Murmansk, the northernmost Russian port, to look for 10,000 year old petroglyphs. Her lover cancels at the last minute (the affair, like the weather, growing cold), but she decides to follow up with the plan. Most of the movie describes the never-ending train trip with an accidental replacement for her lover, a young Russia worker going to Murmansk to work on a lucrative but dangerous mining project. He is uneducated, uncouth, often crude and repulsive, so the forced company makes her trip a misery. But with time (guess what) she discovers an introvert, sensitive, chivalrous man and (guess what) falls in love. The reasons for her lover cancelling the trip are vague, as the reasons for her continuing with their plan. The best I could guess was a young woman, really still a girl, trying to find her intellectual and sexual identity under the cover of academic pursuit. Alioha, her Compartment 6 roommate, is even more enigmatic. He is attracted to her, but also scared of the budding romance. All-in-all, a very slow lyrical trip into the snow-covered north in a prediluvian train to look for prediluvian rock art. The movie deserves really just six stars, but the acting and the sort-of-mystical camera earn it another one. Truth in advertising-the petroglyphs are in the area of Murmansk-on Kanozero island. They are "just" 3-4 millenia old (but in other sites there are some much much older). Having seen many much older and more enigmatic - I wouldn't have braved Russian trains, Russian cold, and Alioha to see them up close.
Nur eine Frau (2019)
A great movie about terrible fate of a woman who leaves islam
I went to see it prepared for a standard protest movie, a corny. I left the theater angry, upset, horrified, and also elated. I was angry, horrified, appalled by the incredibly cruel, backward, and woman-hating slant of orthodox Islam. Although the movie follows the fate of Aynoor, the heroine who is murdered by her youngest brother to defend the "honor" of her family, the fate of the whole family follows a Greek tragedy course and curse, the curse of kowtowing to the ruthless, paternalistic religion that makes both the real victim and the perpetrators into victims .In the end, Aynoor dies because of love. She could have moved away, escaped her family. Or she could have actively involved the police in her plight. She did not do it because she loved her family and, despite all the evidence for the opposite, tried again and again to heal the wound between her, her parents, and her siblings.
I was also elated because the movie was made so well. Professionally competent, terse, often understated, with excellent acting and directing throughout. And another cause to be elated - criticism of religion and ethnic lifestyles is not PC. The creators of this docudrama decided to take the risk and bring the terrible clash between Western humanistic values and those of immigrant fundamentalist Moslems into the public domain. Lets hope that the movie will prevent another death.
Roy (2000)
Very nice dark fantasy/SciFi vignette
A short dark fantasy/SciFi vignette. On the background of rental apartments run by a nasty old lady and weird tenants terrified of her wrath, a story of split personality- mind vs body, intellect vs worldly passions, is narrated. The witch landlady armed with a baseball bat, hearing what seems to her as an argument between Roy and a putative illegal sub-tenant in Roy's apartment, trudges upstairs to investigate and threaten Roy. I don't want to spoil your viewing by telling you who wins. Excellent photography (shot through the AC vent!) and nifty special effects. The best feature is creating a dark,if somewhat tongue-in-cheek, atmosphere. The background for opening titles and credits are particularly good and will do well in full-length fantasy movie.I have seen young folks watching it over and over. Definitely worth seeing, especially if you're under twenty five.