I suspect this film may not have done very well at the box office here in Finland, not least because it seems hardly to have been marketed. That's a pity, because it tells a good story of greed and folly in a very vivid way, and gives insights into the Finnish mindset which are usually open only to those fairly few foreigners who have a grasp of the language. (And in doing so, it overcomes some of the more tired clichés about the Finns, which I fear Kaurismaki's films sometimes exaggerate.) It looks good, there are some very funny moments, and the soundtrack - featuring some very tacky versions of well-known classics - complements the visual material very satisfactorily. It would be a pity if it failed to reach a wider audience.
Reviews
5 Reviews
Young Adam
(2003)
Patchy and unconvincing
8 November 2004
This film didn't really work for me. Why not? Too little was done to establish a sense of time or place. There were lots of ancient cars, and some trouble had been taken over the clothes, but that's as far as it went. The actors, apart from Tilda Swinton, didn't look as if they belonged in the 1950s - the haircuts were wrong, for a start. Nor did they sound as if they came from anywhere near Glasgow. The plot failed to find the right pace; it was too slow in the beginning, and too condensed at the end. Most of all, the actions of the characters didn't carry conviction. This may have been a problem of the adaptation, or of the original book. Either way, five out of ten.
A Dance to the Music of Time
(1997– )
Abridgement not adaptation; a lost opportunity
1 November 2004
This was an adaptation that was almost bound to fail. Squeezing 12 novels into eight hours of television allows just 40 minutes per novel. 'The Valley of Bones' was condensed into just 17 minutes. If this had been done well it would truly have been a miracle of compression. However, it was achieved by eliminating about two-thirds of the book.
So it is really rather surprising that the adaptors should have created scenes which were only hinted at rather than described in the book. I counted four, all of which added unnecessary violence and gore. I think if Powell had wanted to make these scenes explicit he would have done so - but he preferred for them to happen offstage.
What is also hard to forgive was the decision to play fast and loose with the chronology towards the end of the series. For example, the launch of 'Fission' should have been immediately after the end of the war rather than somewhere in the mid 50s, while the award of the Magnus Donners prize took place in 1968 or 9 rather than 1963. Anyone who has any feel at all for the period would know that the difference is immense.
But there are good things about this too. The casting is excellent with no-one out of place; the atmosphere for the most part convincing and compelling. A pity that the cast did not have the chance to work through a real adaptation, rather than this drastic and unsatisfactory abridgement.
So it is really rather surprising that the adaptors should have created scenes which were only hinted at rather than described in the book. I counted four, all of which added unnecessary violence and gore. I think if Powell had wanted to make these scenes explicit he would have done so - but he preferred for them to happen offstage.
What is also hard to forgive was the decision to play fast and loose with the chronology towards the end of the series. For example, the launch of 'Fission' should have been immediately after the end of the war rather than somewhere in the mid 50s, while the award of the Magnus Donners prize took place in 1968 or 9 rather than 1963. Anyone who has any feel at all for the period would know that the difference is immense.
But there are good things about this too. The casting is excellent with no-one out of place; the atmosphere for the most part convincing and compelling. A pity that the cast did not have the chance to work through a real adaptation, rather than this drastic and unsatisfactory abridgement.
Meet the Parents
(2000)
Not really suitable for grown-ups
21 October 2004
Perhaps this film gets better towards the end. I wouldn't know; I walked out after about forty minutes.
The central premises of the film are that only a monster wouldn't find the Ben Stiller character lovable; and that the Robert de Niro character is a monster. It didn't work for me; Stiller was silly and tedious - the sort of guy any responsible father would want to keep out of the family - and de Niro was much less overbearing and unpleasant than he might have been. Perhaps he should have been played by a slimy Limey? That could have made for much more interesting (but less contrived) plot and characterisation, without necessarily changing the nature of the film.
The central premises of the film are that only a monster wouldn't find the Ben Stiller character lovable; and that the Robert de Niro character is a monster. It didn't work for me; Stiller was silly and tedious - the sort of guy any responsible father would want to keep out of the family - and de Niro was much less overbearing and unpleasant than he might have been. Perhaps he should have been played by a slimy Limey? That could have made for much more interesting (but less contrived) plot and characterisation, without necessarily changing the nature of the film.
Topsy-Turvy
(1999)
Superb recreation of Victorian London
20 October 2004
When I saw this film three or four years ago I didn't feel the lack of a strong plot that other reviewers have noticed. There was certainly quite enough happening, with enough sense of forward movement, to keep me almost spellbound for the full length of the film. I thought the evocation of Victorians in Victorian London was truly excellent - all too often Victorian England is seen as a screen on which to project our own feelings about that era - feelings which are often clichéd, ill-informed or ill-considered. This film transcended that; it gives one what I think must be as convincing and three-dimensional a picture as we will ever get of what it was like to be Victorian. And it was funny as well.
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