Sunday, May 22, 2011

Kukushka


Dir: Alexander Rogozhkin

Its been a while since I saw a film I liked as much as 'Kukushka', and I think this is probably because, of late I have not gone looking for anything but shallow entertainment. 'Kukushka' is the story of three people who meet in the last days of Finland's war against the Soviet Union in 1944. The first is Veikko, a Finnish sniper who has been left chained to a rock by his German allies and has no wish to fight any more. The Second is Ivan, a Rusian soldier who has been informed on by his political officer and is being taken for trial when he is blown up by friendly fire and the third is Anni, young Lapp woman (see image above) who lives by herself after her husband was 'taken by the soldiers' four years previously.

Events conspire and these three people find themselves living on Anni's tiny farm in the middle of no where, but with the singular disadvantage that none of them speak the others language and so they continually speak past each other as they each talk about their own troubled lives. It makes for some entertaining dialogue, not least since they understand each other's body language quite well and as Anni spends time with the two men, it becomes ever more obvious that she is hungry for a man.

I understand Rogozhkin used amateur actors to make this film, and perhaps thats one of its advantages as I have never seen any of the actors before and they each performed with excellence. Anni, played by Anni-Kristiina Juuso was particularly good and in watching this film I discovered that not only are Lapp girls cute, but Saami is the sexiest language on Earth!

This is easily my favourite film so far this year!


1 comment:

Cyan said...

This isn't available yet on Netflix, but I saved it in my queue in hopes that it will be. It sounds great.