This black and white Estonian film was kind of sold as a horror story and while there are horror elements, its play much more as fairy tale. The villagers of this town are tricking the devil into deals that lets them put souls and life into devices made from bits and pieces they have lying around and are used to steal things from their neighbours and do chores. They have also been tricking the Black Death from coming into their community. Overload over this is a sort of lover triangle between Liina a farm girl who is also a werewolf, the curse local farm boy Hans and the Baron’s daughter who is a somnambulist who is dangerously close to walking off the roof of the manor nightly. Liina is promised the her father’s older, creepy friend and Hans is in love with the sleep walking girl while Liina pines after Hans.
The events in this film are, to say the least bizarre but fascinating. The relation of the occult and supernatural to the villagers is handled so casually, not of it is strange to them despite of strange it is to us. As a spoiler warning, like most of the original fairy tales old old, things do do end well.
The two main young actors, despite being cover in crud most of the time are really appealing and the acting throughout is very good. The place where the film outshine almost all other films I’ve seen in a long time is the cinematography which is just sublime. The effects of the Kraats, the soul infused mechanical creatures, are very well done and integrate naturally into the action and there are some truly beautiful scenes that make this a film like no other you have seen.
2 comments:
I know I have never seen an Estonian film. You certainly make this sound like something I should look up at some point. Also sounds like more than a bit of a mish-mash of a lot of different elements!
We watched it without subtitles and still loved it. Almost all the shots were just amazing. I can't say I thought it all made sense but it didn't matter. It was inspiring visually.
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