| CANINE CUTICLE CHRONICLE : Markku Polonen’s Dog Nail Clipper [6/10] |
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| Wednesday, 09 March 2005 | |
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-------------------------------------------------------- > Sakari - I saw a Finnish movie in the cinema at Bradford Film Festival last night. > English title Dog Nail Clipper > Finnish title Koirankynnen leikkaaja > Director : Markku Polonen (Emmauksen Tiella - On the Road to Emmaus, > etc) Have you seen it? > NEIL -------------------------------------------------------- I haven't seen that one yet, but still I know I would like it! Polonen is a director who I like, he's also from east Finland, where my family comes from, and it shows in the mentality and stories of his films. Did you like it? I quess Finnish films might be difficult for foreigners because we are so different! Cheers, Sakari -------------------------------------------------------- Sakari, Well, Polonen certainly captures the "different" nature of the Finns in his movie, which is set just after World War 2 and is about Mertsi (Peter Franzen) a soldier who is shot in the head in 1941 (Finland fighting USSR), becomes brain damaged, and struggles to get by in the aftermath of the conflict. There is much that seems very stirringly patriotic - brief but powerful war footage a la Saving Private Ryan (the soldier keeps having flashback nightmares), and lots of stuff involving the logging of trees, showing how through hard work (in breathtakingly beautiful landscapes) Finland started on the hard road to the prosperity which we now see today. But there is a quirky ambiguity to the film (these touches reminiscent of Polonen's more offbeat On the Road to Emmaus) which makes it more interesting than just a "flag waving" exercise - when the lead character starts singing an old-school patriotic anthem, he's shushed and told "We don't sing those kinds of songs any more." The style of the film is nothing new - a standard "inspirational" orchestral score; Mertsi is similar to "simple-minded heroes" so often seen in films over the years (Rain Man, Forrest Gump, Milwaukee Minnesota, etc); it's nicely shot and always looks great; the wartime/animals aspects are handled quite sentimentally - and I was surprised to find that the picture didn't make it as Finland's submission for the Foreign-Language Oscar (it was on the shortlist of 12 candidates). Maybe they were put off with the odd-sounding title*, which doesn't actually fit the film that well - I couldn't stop thinking about Captain Beefheart's song Bat Chain Puller. And 'clipping dog nails' isn't quite the right translation, and makes it sound like a picture about a canine grooming parlour. But the actual plot is decidedly weird when you stop to think about it - Mertsi makes it his mission in life to clip the painful ingrowing toenails of a farmer's hunting-dog - and the narrative often doesn't develop quite as we expect. But it is often quite a slow film and I did struggle to stay awake in the first hour. The second hour picked up a bit, I'm glad to say - there's a handy leap-forward just when you think our hero is going to go on some kind of epic trek to where the farmer lives. And the last scene / last shot is really an excellent one which, as well as being an effective tearjerker, makes you think about the whole picture in a different way. I won't give away this ending, but it involves a Finnish flag that is visible in one shot, then somehow absent in the next - an error on Polonen's part, or deliberate? I reckon that the answer to this question determines whether or not the viewer has given Dog Nail Clipper the benefit of the doubt. I'm inclined to lean towards the idea that Polonen knew exactly what he was doing. It's probably a must-see for Finnish audiences (was released in Feb 04) - but I'm not sure it's going to get much chance of a commercial release in other countries as it may be perceived as "too Finnish" for foreign audiences accustomed to a diet of Aki Kaurismaki where there are more laughs provided. And although it's a complex and quite subtle film in some ways, nicely acted (Taisto Reimaluoto is good as Mertsi's friend/protector Eetvi), I have to say I preferred the more raucuous view of Finnish culture which I saw last year in Perttu Leppa's Pearls and Pigs - that film's loutish Timo Lavikainen pops up here as a nasty young bloke (his amazingly insolent face seemingly dooms him to such casting) but it's a disappointingly one-dimensional role. Sorry to have gone on at such length, but it's an interesting picture to write and think about - even if it's sometimes hard going to watch! Neil Neil Young 9th March, 2005 DOG NAIL CLIPPER : [6/10] : Koirankynnen leikkaaja : Finland 2004 : Markku POLONEN : 105 mins seen at the IMAX cinema, National Museum of Film, Photography and Television, Bradford (UK), 7th March, 2005 - public show (not shown in IMAX format), Bradford Film Festival * The title is that of the source novel by Veikko Huovisen (adapted by Polonen himself) which, according to Variety magazine's estimable Jay Weissberg, "is considered a classic" in Finland**. Weissberg reports that Dog Nail Clipper star Peter Franzen is currently working as a taxi driver in Hollywood as he tries to break into US movies. ** On Fri, 11 Mar 2005, Neil Young wrote: > Sakari - Is the book on which DOG NAIL CLIPPER is based very well known in Finland? Well, the writer, Veikko Huovinen, certainly is! He's very well known for his humoristic statements of the society, he's written plenty of great books in over 50 years, and quite a few of them have been filmatised. But this Koirankynnen leikkaaja (dog nail clipper) written in 1980 is not that well known book, being maybe the reason why Polonen chose to film it? After all the writer is also from east Finland, mostly writes about strange persons that you can really find in Finland, especially in the east! Sakari
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