Kumu Hina [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Official website

Kumu Hina [2014] (directed by Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson) is a documentary about Hina Wong-Kalu a contemporary native-Hawaiian māhū (transgender person) who as māhūs often did in traditional Hawaiian/Polynesian society serves as a Kumu (or master) at a hālau hula (traditional hula school) in Honolulu, Hawaii.  The film played recently as part of Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center's 20th Annual Asian American Showcase and will air in May, 2015 on PBS's Independent Lens program.

I found the film's subject matter interesting because as questions surrounding gender -- gender roles, gender identification, gender relationships -- become more and more prevalent in our time (and across the globe...) there have been some fairly interesting films made about various traditional, non-Western approaches to these questions. 

I think here of an excellent recent film set in China called Snow Flower and the Secret Fan [2011] that was about a laotong (or "sworn sister") kind of relationship that apparently existed in traditional Chinese society. 

The current film is about a person who began life as a Hawaiian man and in his twenties/thirties did undergo a sex change operation to become physically a woman but who did certainly claim that all his life he identified with being a woman.  While certainly most people would not go to the point of undergoing a sex-change operation, most of us do know people from our childhoods who ALSO more-or-less clearly identified more with the opposite sex/gender than than with the one which they physically were -- the "harder-core tomboys" and the "boys who dressed-up / played with dolls."

Well, the point of this film, which I do find interesting (and humane), was that in traditional Hawaiian / Polynesian society THERE WAS A RESPECTED _MIDDLE_ PLACE FOR THESE FOLKS.  And they often became the TEACHERS, to some extent even PRIEST-LIKE TEACHERS (mediating between "the old traditions" and "the people"), of the society.

This film is without question "not for all", BUT also it is also (without question) an INTERESTING one and IMHO on a whole bunch of levels.

One of the most interesting levels for me is simply: Is Christianity / Catholicism (which is about a Universal Church big enough FOR EVERYBODY who sincerely belongs there) capable of learning from other cultures / traditions?

I obviously think that it is.  And in our generation, we are asking if there is there a place for the "tom boys" and the "girly boys."  We have them in our midst and even in our families.  We invite them to our family Christmas and Mother's Day dinners.  Is there a place for them in Church?

It would seem that Pope Francis with his now famous "who am _I_ (!) to judge?" comment has opened-up the door IN THE CHURCH for this discussion.

If we can be kind to our "more butch," "effeminate," and even more generally to our "generally (!) harmless but strange" (Addams Family-like ;-) relatives in our families, why can't the Church?

Again, I think _we can_ be so kind and, honestly, if we believe in a Church "big enough FOR EVERYBODY who belongs there," I believe we must.

Yes, this is not necessarily a film for everybody, but one certainly for adults to see, consider and then talk-about.


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While We're Young [2014]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  


While We're Young [2014] (written and directed by Noah Baumbach) is a dramedy about growing-up / growing middle-aged that many who become entranced by the film may want to see again or perhaps even a couple more times.  Why?  IMHO because the film sneaks up on you.  It initially feels like a rather straight forward nostalgic celebration of "what it is/was like to be young," and then ... it changes into something else, perhaps darker, but (again IMHO) worthy of a second and even third look.

Josh and Cornelia (played by Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts respectively) are an intellectual 40-something New York couple, Josh a documentary filmmaker, Cornelia a producer of such films, first for her dad (played wonderfully / intentionally somewhat distantly by Charles Grodin), then with her husband, then for her dad again.  Cornelia's bouncing between her father and her husband actually says a lot ... about Cornelia and ... even Josh:

Though 40-something neither really seems to have grown-up (and out from the shadow of their parents'/inlaws' generation).

Josh (with Cornelia) made exactly one, if excellent, documentary feature ... some twelve years ago.  He's been struggling (and Cornelia's long since given-up on working with him) for the past TEN YEARS to make a second one.  But though he has the footage, again TEN YEARS OF IT, interviewing some New York intellectual about "the important political/cultural forces of our time," SINCE HE HAS TEN YEARS OF INTERVIEWS, BOTH HE AND THE INTELLECTUAL HE'S BEEN INTERVIEWING VISIBLY AGE (!!) IN THE FOOTAGE.  At best, he's gonna have to REDO a good deal of the interviews if he's ever going to get the project finished ... BUT apparently EVERYTIME HE DOES THAT, SOMETHING "NEW" COMES OUT OF THE DISCUSSION SENDING HIM IN A NEW DIRECTION ... ;-).

In the meantime, Cornelia's (and if one's honest, Josh's) "biological clock" has first sputtered and then run-out.  They TRIED a number of years back (apparently in their mid/late 30s) to finally have a kid and well, after many fertility treatments and several miscarriages, Cornelia at least has arrived at the reality that "that ship has sailed."

So ... recapping ... at 40-something, Josh finds himself lecturing at (presumably) CUNY "about documentary film-making", Cornelia works for her dad and they've come to the realization that they are probably not going to have children ... EVEN AS ONE OF THE LAST CHILDLESS COUPLES THAT WERE AMONG THEIR GENERATION / FRIENDS ... JUST HAD A BABY.

So where the heck is the comedy in this? ;-)  It's that kind of comedy / dramedy ... Even clowns can both smile and have a tear running down their cheek ...

Enter a hipster 20-something couple, Jamie (played by Adam Driver) and his wife (!) Darby (played by Amanda Seyfried), who just show-up one day at one of Josh's classes.  Not recognizing them, Josh asks who they are.  Jamie answers that they're "just auditing the class."  Josh tells them that his is a continuing education class, one that one can't "just audit" (listen in on / take for free).  The two twenty somethings just smile and shrug their shoulders, apparently either not understanding (or nor caring).   Cornelia arrives to pick-up Josh after his class ... and ... so Josh / Cornelia meet Jamie / Darby ... and Act II of the story proceeds from there.

Josh and Cornelia find Jamie and Darby to be almost from another planet, A NICE PLANET, A NICE RESPECTFUL PLANET that _they_ almost wished they belonged to BUT A DIFFERENT ONE NONETHELESS.  So for a good part of the film that follows, 40-something Josh and Cornelia are simply ENCHANTED by the little retro-Bohemian world that 20-something Jamie and Darby live in: (1) Jamie and Darby GOT MARRIED.  Even in Josh / Cornelia's 20-something days "NOBODY" (at least of their intellectual class) got married "that young," (2) they were somewhat dirt poor but didn't care, (3) they seemed to make EVERYTHING themselves, (4) they LIKED "old things" (Jamie's vinyl 33 record collection was bigger than Josh's ever was, and all that Josh owned today was a bunch of CDs).  Who were these "Amish city-dwelling Bohemians"??  BUT THEY LIKED THEM.

And so at one point, Josh and Cornelia REALLY CONSIDER _dropping_ THE "FRIENDS WITH CHILDREN" OF THEIR GENERATION to simply hang-out with these younger 20 year olds, WHO WERE SO NICE, SO SIMPLE, SO INNOCENT, SO RESPECTFUL OF THEM ... AS "ELDERS" ... even if THEY THEMSELVES NEVER THOUGHT OF THEMSELVES AS SUCH BEFORE.

Of course, in the third act, THIS CHANGES.  Jamie and Darby turn out to be MORE than "sweet children of the corn" ;-) ... (no they are not space aliens or zombies or anything like that ... but they BECOME MORE than JUST "innocent hipster Amishlike Bohemians" ...).  And I have to say that I found the transition fascinating, unsettling and perhaps ultimately honest.

And so this is why I do believe that this film deserves several views.  What happens in that third act?  (Yes, the plot sequence is not that hard to figure out but ...) BUT HONESTLY why does Cornelia's ever distant if ever looming FATHER (!!) suddenly / quite literally "come into the picture" and then seem to understand JAMIE (and his generation) BETTER than JOSH (and his)?

Fascinating ;-) -- the Prodigal Son and Job wrapped into one ;-)


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A Girl Like Her [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  ChicagoTribune (3.5 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3.5 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (C. Darling) review



A Girl Like Her [2015] (written and directed by Amy S. Weber) is a very well done film using a fictionalized documentary format about bullying at a random upper-middle-class high school somewhere in the United States today.

Jessica Burns (played by Lexi Ainsworth) was an utterly random high school sophomore, perhaps kinda bright, perhaps kinda shy, whose social world went into a nose dive after an _utterly random_ incident some 6-9 months back with her former best friend from grade school named Avery Keller (played spot-on perfectly by Hunter King) who, in turn, was turning/blossoming into "the popular girl" in their class: Basically SOMETIME during the middle of their previous (Freshman) year, during a test, Avery KINDA looked over to Jessica's desk PERHAPS looking to copy an answer to one of the questions AND Jessica KINDA turned away and covered-up her work.  And THAT ... was that. 

THAT UTTERLY RANDOM 1-2 SECOND "INCIDENT" SENT THEIR PREVIOUSLY YEARS LONG "BFF" RELATIONSHIP, QUITE LITERALLY INTO A _DEATH SPIRAL_.  AVERY, becoming "the popular girl" in their class decided to _socially destroy_ Jessica, and spent (along with her growing "multitude" of new friends) the NEXT 6-9 MONTHS, RELENTLESSLY PICKING-ON her (perhaps somewhat-less good-looking, perhaps somewhat more socially awkward, perhaps somewhat SMARTER) FORMER BEST FRIEND JESSICA.  

... and Jessica's social world COLLAPSED to a single somewhat adoring, somewhat nerdy friend named Brian (played again wonderfully by Jimmy Bennett).  Seeing what was happening to Jessica at the hands of Avery and her legion of "popular friends," HE came up with the idea of "documenting this."  How?  At some random electronic store, he bought Jessica a little spy cam.  Basically it was a little camera inside a butterfly-like pendant and he asked her to wear it. 

Why?  Why would she wear it?  Well, Brian gave her a plausible story that he was simply interested in computers / video (which he was) and he thought it would be kinda cool that she wear this camera to document her life.  OF COURSE he mentioned that it could be useful to document some of the bullying that's happening to her.  BUT he makes it more positive sounding, telling her that he just wanted to see if together they could eventually make a movie about "a random high school girl's life" (and that random high school girl would be Jessica).  And Jessica, otherwise DOWN AS COULD BE, found this "project" ("for her friend") positive / interesting.

Well, of course the bullying of her does not stop, and eventually, Jessica (something of a SPOILER ALERT, but IT HAPPENS SO EARLY IN THE FILM, that it arguably helps set the film up) tries to commit suicide.

Why (does she do that)?  Well, that "spy footage" of course is going to help explain why ...

But in the meantime, something else was going on at school.  A professional documentary team arrived at the school just before Jessica's suicide attempt to do a piece about the school because it had just been selected as "one of the 10 best high schools in the country."  Then in the midst of their filming to do that piece, word comes out that one of the school's students tried to commit suicide.  SO WITH THE SCHOOL ADMINSTRATION'S PERMISSION, the documentary crew decides to pursue _that new angle_ as well: "Even though this would be one of the best schools in the country, nevertheless it's not free of teenage problems ..."

Anyway, this then sets up the film and to writer / director Weber's credit the film doesn't make the bully, Avery, simply into a monster.  She arguably becomes the central character (star?) of the film and the film leaves both teens and parents WITH MUCH TO REFLECT ON and TALK ABOUT. 


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Woman in Gold [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review

Salzberger Nachrichte (M. Meidl) review*
Der Spiegel (K. Heinrich) review*

ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

Woman in Gold [2015] (directed by Simon Curtis, screenplay by Alexi Kaye Campbell) tells the story of Holocaust survivor Maria Altman (played magnificently in the film by Helen Mirren) and her young, still intimidated by the stories of his elders, lawyer E. Randol Schoenberg (played again spot-on by Ryan Reynolds) who was also the son / grandson of Holocaust survivors and of a family that was friends with Maria's since both families lived in Vienna BEFORE THE NAZIS.

Together, they acheived a remarkable (and poignant) feat of restorative justice -- the recovery of a famous portrait of Maria's aunt Adele Bloch-Bauer (played in flashbacks in the film by Antje Traue) painted by Gustav Klimt (played briefly in a flashback by Moritz Bleibtreu) that once graced the childhood home of Maria (played in flashbacks as a child by  and a young, newly married woman by Tatiana Maslany) in Vienna before the Nazis took-over and which, since the Nazi-era, had hung in Vienna's Belvedere Gallery. 

Now it had been her Adele's wish that following her death (which actually occurred in the 1920s - due to meningitis) her Klimt paintings hang in the Belvedere.  HOWEVER, her husband was the actual owner of the paintings (he paid for them).  And he wanted them to continue to hang in his brother's home where he, since he and Adele had no children, he also lived.  When the Nazis came, they confiscated the Altman's property, (the family was Jewish).  And it was actually BY UTTER ACCIDENT THAT A NAZI HIMSELF "donated" (the STOLEN) painting of Adele Bloch-Bauer to the Belvedere while the Nazis still ruled the roost in Vienna, where the painting stood hanging as "Austria's Mona Lisa" ever since.

Anyway, in the 1990s, fifty years after the end of WW II, the Austrians, trying to improve their images, besmirched again by the "outing" of former U.N. General Secretary and then Austrian President Kurt Waldheim as a probable WW II war criminal (during his service in former Yugoslavia during the war), decided to "revisit" the question of restoring art stolen during the Nazi era to their rightful owners.  AND BY THEN 80+ year old Maria Altman decided THEN to pursue the matter of recovering this famous picture of her aunt.

Yes, the case was _somewhat_ "complicated" as there was written proof that Adele had wanted her paintings to (eventually) hang in the Belvedere.  But, as I already mentioned above, she never really owned them (her husband did).  Then, of course, the paintings were stolen by the Nazis, who killed almost everybody but Maria and her sister from this family.  And so this was a battle over a picture of "a woman painted with Gold," but also a picture of a Maria's Aunt whose family the Nazis had "drenched with Blood" ...

Still egos are egos, and the painting, heavily painted with gold as it was, was actually very, very valuable (worth $135 million apparently) ... so a years long battle ensued ... presented then in the film.

However, what I most liked about the film was its portrayal of Maria Altman's family's life BEFORE THE NAZIS CAME.  It was _full of life_.  At one point, Maria explained to her still so young lawyer that even Sigmund Freud had visited her family's home in Vienna during that time.  AND ALL THIS WAS DESTROYED BY THE NAZIS and most of the people that Maria knew from that time WERE MURDERED BY THEM.

So this was truly a lost world, and yes, Maria did deserve to get least this picture of her aunt back.

In any case, AN EXCELLENT FILM.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.

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Open Up to Me (orig. Kerron sinulle kaiken) [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Cineuropa.org listing

Iltalehti.fi review*
nyt.fi (L. Virtanen) review*
cinemagazine.nl (H. Wouters) review*

Open Up to Me (orig. Kerron sinulle kaiken) [2014] [IMDb] [CEu] (written and directed by Simo Halinen [IMDb] [CEu]) is a FINNISH drama that that for many viewers (including myself) would probably be one of the most challenging films to be shown recently at the 2015 - 18th Chicago European Union Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago.

This is because the film is about the struggles, "after the fact", of a person who had undergone a sex change operation.  Leave it to the Europeans and specifically the Scandinavians to tell a story like this... ;-).

But honestly, THIS IS AN EXCELLENT FILM -- A "THIS IS HOW IT IS / THIS IS HOW IT WILL REMAIN" sort of a story.  And if one thinks that this is some sort of a glorification of this sort of decision, IT CERTAINLY IS NOT.  Instead, the film is an _eyes quite open_ exposition of "these are the conflicts / issues that one still is going to have to deal with, if one does decide to go in this direction" (so, in fact, one could make an informed decision):

Maarit (played magnificently/thoroughly credibly throughout by Leea Klemola [IMDb] [CEu]) is a 40-something person who had recently (in the past year or so) undergone a sex change operation from male to female.

She had previously been married (as a male) to an ex who now hates him/her.  Why?  Well she tells Maarit: "Thanks to you, no one will ever touch me again."  Why?  Well, WHEN / HOW does one explain to a potential new boyfriend, fiance', or husband (and then HIS family and circle of friends) that after 15 years of marriage, one's ex decided to have a sex change.  Yes, this was Maarit's decision, but ...

Similarly, Maarit's teenage daughter Pinja (played again wonderfully by Emmi Nivala [IMDb] [CEu]), already quiet, average, perhaps a bit overweight, has to deal with school-mates who pick-on her for the chosen-unconventionality of one of her parents.  Yes, Maarit's decision was his-now-hers and not his-now-her daughter's BUT ... how does one explain that to other teens when ALL OF THEM are already insecure, trying make their way in the world as it is?


Then previously, Maarit was a social worker by profession.  NOW, she's a cleaning-lady.  In the course of the film, she's trying to get herself back into social work, applying for a job at a Helsinki women's shelter, BUT ... her potential employer asks her: "You know, as a matter of course, we do a google search on potential employees here ... and there's no 'Maarit <last name>' of Helsinki anywhere to be found on the internet."  And she has to explain.

The potential employer tries to be open minded / compassionate, BUT ... she's _also_ thinking about the various troubled / traumatized women who come to their shelter and wondering (at least inside her head) if it'd be fair to them already dealing with so much to be "helped" by someone who'd need to give at least a paragraph's worth of explanation about who she was and how she got to be who she was ... before she would help / counsel them ...

Finally, Maarit does try to find a guy.  And she kinda does, Sam (played by Peter Franzén [IMDb] [CEu]) who's married but with marital problems.  In fact, when Sam first meets her, Maarit, he still thinks that she's a counselor (and he meets her then in the context of a counseling session).  Maarit tries very hard to be honest with him about who she is, who she was, and tells him, quite soon enough, that she's no no longer a counselor.

Initially Sam doesn't seem to mind (or really comprehend) her previous history.  But eventually it does bother him and then when his estranging wife Julia (played again quite well by Ria Kataja [IMDb] [CEu]) finds out that he's been carrying on (having an affair) with someone who had a sex change operation ... well, (would ANYBODY be surprised ...) SHE ABSOLUTELY HITS THE ROOF ... telling him "the only way you're ever going to see OUR kids again is with a court order" (she does cool down a few days later, but ... Sam-Julia's marriage comes to an end and it's pretty clear that Sam's own life/history is now very much changed by his ever so brief affair/fling with Maarit.

SO ... THIS IS NOT A PRETTY MOVIE.  IN FACT, it's A QUITE SOBERING ONE.  One's left wondering if Maarit knew how difficult (SOCIALLY / RELATIONALLY...) it would be to go through a sex change operation would he/she have done so?

One does get the impression that Maarit would have done it anyway.  And many others like Maarit do so anyway.

AND ONE CAN ONLY BEGIN TO APPRECIATE THE AMOUNT OF PAIN THAT THESE PEOPLE ALREADY ARE IN when this ALWAYS quite _radical_ (and irreversible, on all kinds of levels) option becomes a serious one for them.  One gets the sense that ONE REALLY DOESN'T DO THIS LIGHTLY ... because it really involves a huge amount of social-relational pain.

So this is one heck of a film, well done and certainly very, very thought provoking.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.

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Alias Loner (orig. Segvārds Vientulis) [2014]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Cineuropa.org listing
ForumCinema.lv listing*

Official Facebook*

LSM.lv (B. Cuzco) article*

Delfi.lv review*
Diena.lv (K. Matīsa, K. Raksti) review*
Kinoteikumi.lv review*
LTV.lv review*


Alias Loner (orig. Segvārds Vientulis) [2014] [FB] [IMDb] (written and directed by Normunds Pucis [IMDb] [CEu]) is a LATVIAN docudrama about Father Anton Juhņevičs (played in the film by Varis Piņķis [IMDb] [CEu]) an outspoken Latvian Catholic priest who hid in his Church young Latvians fleeing conscription by BOTH Nazi and Soviet authorities during WW II and CAME TO LEAD during the SUMMER AND FALL OF 1945 the ARMED LATVIAN OPPOSITION TO THE REIMPOSITION OF SOVIET RULE on his country.   The film played recently at the 2015 - 18th Chicago European Union Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago.

Recognizing by late 1945 that continued fighting was pointless, he turned himself in to Archbishop of Riga in January 1946, who kept him (with Soviet authorities' permission) under house arrest at a Capuchin monastery in the Latvian capital city Riga.

When the Archbishop of Riga tried to get him out of the country, Fr. Juhņevičs was arrested outside of the monastery, tried and eventually put to death in 1947.

For a non-Latvian like me, I found it both fascinating and actually not altogether surprising that organized Latvian armed resistance to the reimposition of Soviet rule until at least 1946.  The Courland peninsula in Latvia remained outside of Soviet Control until the end of World War II, and the Latvians knew for certain what awaited them if they surrendered to the Soviet NKVD authorities.

What's remarkable that FINALLY a film, and reaching the West, was made about this post-WW II continued guerrilla resistance to Soviet rule.  (Previously, I had merely heard that such armed opposition existed in the Ukraine until at least 1950... There was also reference to similar Lithuanian resistance in the German film Wolfschildren (orig. Wolfskinder) [2013] about "left behind"/war refugee German East Prussian children who eventually came to survive and be adopted by Lithuanian families in the years after the war).  It's a remarkable and important story that helps explain conflicts and fears that remain up to today.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.

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In the Crosswind (orig. Risttuules) [2014]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Cineuropa.org listing
EFIS.ee listing*
CSFD listing*
Filmweb.pl listing*
Kinopoisk.ru listing*

Cineuropa.org interview w. director

AllFilm.ee review*
aVoir-aLire.fr (F. Mignard) review*
Cineuropa.org (L. Boyce) review*
Cinema-Scope.com (K. Reardon) review*
Filmiarvustus.eu (R. Puust) review*
Kino-zeit.de (K. Kieninger) review*

In the Crosswind (orig. Risttuules) [2014] [IMDb] [CEu] [EFIS]* (directed and cowritten by Martti Helde [IMDb] [CEu] [EFIS]* along with Liis Nimik [IMDb] [CEu] [EFIS]*) is an ESTONIAN docudrama that tells the story of the first wave of the Stalin-era mass deportations [en.wikip] of residents of the freshly Soviet-occupied Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia [en.wikip] to Siberia following the signing of the then secret protocols [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact [en.wikip] [et.wikip]*[pl.wikip].*

The story based on archival materials is told through the letters/diary of a fictionalized Estonian woman named Erna (played in the film by the Estonian actress Laura Peterson [IMDb] [CEu] [EFIS]*).  The film played recently at the 2015 - 18th Chicago European Union Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago.

Erna begins the story as a 27 y/o university educated woman living with her husband Heldur (played by Tarmo Song [IMDb] [CEu] [EFIS]*) who was a former Estonian military officer, and young daughter Eliide (played by Mirt Preegel [IMDb] [CEu] [EFIS]*) on a lovely apple orchard in the rolling Estonian countryside.

Her (family's) lives were forever altered when on June 14, 1941 (8 days before the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union) the NKVD came, arrested the family, separated the Erna's husband from her and her daughter and sent them all along with some 10,000 other Estonians (and 30,000 others - Lithuanians, Latvians - from the Baltic States) to Siberia.  For the next 15 years (!) Erna writes her husband from her place of exile, never receiving a reply.

The fifteen years of exile are portrayed STYLISTICALLY in this way:

While THE WHOLE FILM was filmed in black and white, from the moment that the family was arrested taken away, EVERY SCENE WAS FILMED WITH LIVE ACTORS _FROZEN IN POSES_ DEPICTING THE SCENES DESCRIBED IN ERNA'S LETTERS / DIARY ENTRIES -- the train station scene when they were loaded onto cattle cars to be deported to Siberia; the arrival scene in Siberia with their several days march to the location of their exile; a scene depicting their work camp barracks and the timber felling/lumber yard work that they were first consigned to, various tilling of the soil, improvement of the work camp into a village (or construction of a village near the original work camp) after they had _clear cut_ a sufficient amount of the timber in the area; a Communist era wedding scene as some of the younger exiles after many years believing that there was no hope of return, progressively decided to "continue on with their lives" "out there."

IN EACH CASE, THE CAMERA WOULD MEANDER through the rather complex scenes of "still" (FROZEN) "life" depicted, while Erma's voice-over would read the diary entry / letter that she was writing to her husband at the time.

The effect is haunting, intentionally so, and an expression of a description of the period of Exile that the writer director found while researching Estonia's archival records to make the film.  In a diary written by a woman, perhaps not unlike Erna of the film, she describes the experience of Exile as that of "time entering into a entirely different dimension," that is, that TIME ... STOOD ... STILL.

This was a profound film, and one of several made recently by various peoples that suffered these Soviet era deportaions.

Among the excellent films on this theme that I've reviewed here are Siberian Exile (orig. Syberiada Polska) [2013] from Poland and The Excursionist (orig. Ekskursantė) [2013] from Lithuania.

Together they tell stories of awful industrialized suffering at the hands of arrogant rulers who really didn't care about the little people that they crushed as bugs under their heels.


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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