Scandinavian Series: Mies vailla menneisyyttä (The Man Without a Past), 2002. Friday, June 10th, 6 P.M., Zrinyi 14, room 412.

Mies vailla menneisyyttä (The Man Without a Past), 2002
Directed by Aki Kaurismäki
Finnish with English subtitles, 97 min.

The second part of Aki Kaurismäki’s “Finland” trilogy, the film follows a man who arrives in Helsinki and gets beaten up so severely he develops amnesia. Unable to remember his name or anything from his past life, he cannot get a job or an apartment, so he starts living on the outskirts of the city and slowly starts putting his life back on track. (imdb)
Kaurismäki is an acquired taste. His characters tend to plant their feet and deliver their dialogue as if eternal truths are being spoken, and the camera tends to plant itself and regard them without a lot of fancy work. His characters don’t smile much, they nod sadly a lot, they smoke and think and expect the worst. And yet there is a joy in them, a deep humor that’s all the richer because it springs from human nature and the absurdity of existence, instead of depending on one-liners and gags. If there is something funny about a container having a landlord with a savage watchdog, we have to figure that out for ourselves, because the movie is not going to nudge us in the ribs and laugh for us. (Roger Ebert)

Screening: June 10th, 6 P.M., Zrinyi 14, room 412.

Scandinavian Series: Nói albínói (2003). Friday, June 3rd, 6 P.M., Zrinyi 14, room 412.

Nói albínói, 2003
Directed by Dagur Kári
Icelandic with English subtitles, 82 min.

A wonder boy and drop-out on an Icelandic village scale, Nói (17), dreams of escaping from his remote fjord with Iris, a city girl who works at the local filling station. But Nói’s clumsy attempts to escape don’t get him anywhere, and only get out of hand. (imdb)
The debut feature of Icelandic director Dagur Kári has the deadpan, melancholic tone that brings to mind the poker-faced entertainment of Finland’s Aki Kaurismäki. Everybody here is slightly off-kilter, providing some droll humour: there’s Nói’s taciturn, shotgun-wielding granny (Anna Fridriksdóttir), glumly performing her aerobic exercises; the priest on the motorized sled giving instructions on the precise depth of a grave via a walkie-talkie; and the lugubrious Kierkegaard-quoting bookseller, who muses: “Hang yourself and you’ll regret it. Don’t hang yourself and you’ll regret it.” Contrasting the forbidding whiteness of the natural environment with sickly-green interiors, Dagur Kári incorporates a mellow score from his own band Slowblow. And despite having left clues along the way, this talented filmmaker still manufactures a powerful surprise with an apocalyptic resolution, which nevertheless manages to offer a glimpse of a better future. (Tom Dawson, BBC)

Screening: June 3rd, 6 P.M., Zrinyi 14, room 412.

Scandinavian Series: Italiensk for begyndere (Italian for Beginners), 2000. Friday, May 27th, 6 P.M., Zrinyi 14, room 412.

Italiensk for begyndere (Italian for Beginners), 2000
Dogme #12, written by Lone Scherfig
Danish, Italian with English subtitles, 112 min.

This was the first truly blockbuster dogma, the first real dogma comedy, the first real dogma romance. A bunch of lovable, weird characters are looking for a cure for loneliness and end up finding much more than that in the local Italian course. Lone Shefrig’s sensitivity and humor combine perfectly with the dogma rules and incredible performances from all the actors involved.
A young minister, a widower, is temporarily assigned to a church whose suspended pastor drove parishioners away; he stays at a hotel where he meets Jørgen, who’s alone approaching middle age. Jørgen’s friend Finn, a temperamental restaurant manager, may be about to be fired. Finn’s assistant is Giulia, a lovely young Italian who prays for a husband. Olympia, a clumsy bakery clerk, has an ornery father; Karen, a hairdresser, has a mother who is very ill. The paths of these six characters cross at church, in the restaurant, at the hotel, and at an Italian class at the local adult school. Loneliness, grief, solace, romance, and love may meet ‘nel mezzo del cammini di nostra vita.’ (imdb)

Screening: May 27th, 6 P.M., Zrinyi 14, room 412.

Scandinavian Series: Idioterne (The idiots), 1998. Friday, May 20th, 6 P.M., Zrinyi 14, room 412.

Idioterne (The Idiots), 1998
Dogme #2, written by Lars von Trier
Danish with English subtitles, 117 minutes, with an introduction about the Dogma movement.

Denmark is famous for its generosity with mentally ill people. That is, when it comes to money and health care. But what about public attitude? A group of anarchist pretending to be mentally retarded test the limits of tolerance revealing awkwardness, hypocrisy and ambiguity in the society around them, but also within their own group. Their leader’s aim is to “go back to the basics”, that is, to get rid of all restraints, social and psychological, by discovering their inner idiot, the true, honest, naive, simple self. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to interpret this story as an allegory of the Dogma movement itself. But it is a generally disregarded aspect of this film that it is the second of Lars von Trier’s trilogy about female sacrifice, so it is also the story of Karen, who is the last to come and the last to leave the group. She emerges as the only one true and authentic enough to take the social experiment seriously, at the price of an extreme sacrifice.

Screening: May 20th, 6 P.M., Zrinyi 14, room 412.

Scandinavian Series: Brúðguminn (White Night Wedding), 2008. Friday, May 13th, 6 P.M., Zrinyi 14, room 412.

Brúðguminn (White Night Wedding), 2008
Directed by Baltasar Kormákur
Icelandic with English subtitles, 96 min.

Jon, a middle-aged professor is going to get married tomorrow, for the second time, to one of his ex-students half his age. But it’s not all roses. First, there’s his cranky mother-in-law-to-be who violently opposes the marriage and who demands repayment of Jon’s loan before the wedding night. Second, his plans to build a golf course on the little island of Flatey where they live aren’t going at all to plan. Third, his extremely drunk best man is on the loose without any shoes and lastly, the continual presence of his emotional first wife is haunting his every move. When the guests start flocking to the island, Jon starts getting cold feet. (imdb)
White Night Wedding can avoid excessive exposition in favour of advancing the plot at pace. The bizarre society of the tiny island Flatey is made vivid, and it is clear Kormákur is quite comfortable in the rural regions of his homeland after the success of both this film and Jar City in making the most barren parts of Iceland appealing. There is a progressive decline into absurdity in its latter stages, as the first two-thirds of the film demonstrate a deft wit and contain enough drama to balance the unbalanced behaviour of the supporting cast. It is really only in the wedding sequence that balance is lost and the film resorts to slapstick – while some will find this hilarious, it won’t be for everyone. Based on the Chekov play ‘Ivanov’, White Night Wedding could hardly be blamed for sticking around to make its point, and yet the film feels to have reached its natural ending only to continue for another ten minutes or so and have its meaning entirely changed. (Mark Lavercombe)

Screening: May 13th, 6 P.M., Zrinyi 14, room 412.