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| Director Mika Kaurismäki |
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| Heikki Kinnunen and Jaana Saarinen |
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| Author Tuomas Kyrö |
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| Mika and Aki from yesteryear |
LONG GOOD THURSDAY (Mielensäpahoittajan Rakkaustarina) B- Finland (97 mi) 2024 d: Mika Kaurismäki
The older Kaurismäki brother has always lived in the shadow of his more internationally acclaimed younger brother Aki, whose decades-long success on the arthouse festival circuit has been undeniable, so Mika, co-founder of Sodankylä’s Midnight Sun Film Festival in 1986, the only film festival north of the Arctic Circle, has had to discover the road not taken, finding an alternative path outside Finland. Spending much of his time living and working in Brazil, he first visited that country while making his extraordinary documentary, a poignant final portrait of the indomitable Sam Fuller taking Jim Jarmusch on a journey deep into Brazil's Mato Grosso jungle with the Karajá Indians he befriended forty years earlier scouting film locations in TIGRERO: A FILM THAT WAS NEVER MADE (1994), establishing a home base in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 where he began to focus on international co-productions, living there until 2019 when he left due to his political disagreements with far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, whose large-scale deforestation of the Amazon rainforest increased by 75 percent and led to four years of chaos, criminality and bloodshed. He currently splits his time between Helsinki, Finland and Rio de Janeiro. Mika’s films occupy that liminal space between past and present, featuring protagonists who are perennial outsiders, as in Road North (Tie pohjoiseen) (2012), and this film is no exception. Adapted by Sami Keski-Vähälä from Tuomas Kyrö’s 2010 novel The Man Who Gets Upset About Things, the first of three published books about a stubborn old misanthrope simply known as The Grump, part of a continuing series based upon this same male character, The Grump (fictional character), originally heard on Finnish radio, where this is the fourth installment of the hugely popular film series in Finland, the last two directed by Mika, with Heikki Kinnunen replacing the original actor Antti Litja who retired after the 2014 film release. A gentle romantic comedy about growing older, this film offers astute observations on aging, including family misunderstandings and the value of familiar surroundings, yet no one should ever underestimate companionship, having someone to share your life with in the twilight years, where their problems become your own, turning into a contemporary Finnish version of Mark Rydell’s ON GOLDEN POND (1981) as filtered through the iskelmä music of Agents / Esa Pulliainen - Love Is Blue (Instrumental) (Live) YouTube (3:24) and Tiet (Laila Kinnunen) YouTube (4:00), offering a window into the Finnish soul (The hidden memory of the nation - Finnish Music Quarterly).
If we take a step back from all the different contexts in which Mika has worked, we can see an elaborate multicultural mosaic, where his films take place in different national contexts, which are often clearly distinguished as such, exploring questions of Finnish national identity, like the music of Juice Leskinen - Luonas kai olla saan - Saimaa-ilmiö YouTube (2:22), which can be traced back to a documentary movie made by the Kaurismäki brothers in 1981, THE SAIMAA GESTURE (Saimaa-ilmiö). More recently, Mika has developed a propensity for happy endings, in stark contrast to his earlier films which culminate in ambiguous or distinctly bleak terms. Set in the lush days of a Finnish summer, shot by Jari Mutikainen, with a musical score by Japanese composer Tetsuroh Konishi, this commercially accessible film is a sentimentalized look at what happens when you grow older, when many of the familiar faces you’ve known and the things you’ve loved in your life are gone, where your life appears to be at a standstill, not really knowing which way to turn, dissatisfied with everything in general. Meet the Grump, played by Finnish comedy star Heikki Kinnunen, the farmer in a plaid shirt with an enormous fur hat on his head, a man of few words and a constant scowl on his face, who doesn’t really care about the modern world, yet when he runs into a free-spirited artist who has traveled the world named Saimi (Jaana Saarinen) in a grocery store, of all places, she’s intent on using him as a model for her photography. This is a scenario where a bubbly, upbeat woman meets a typically stoic Finnish man who values his independence and doesn’t say much, given to terse, laconic answers, emblematic of a small country with an introverted culture, where you have to read between the lines to understand the distinctly Finnish appeal of their relationship, where the underlying theme becomes “Ordinary is enough.” His grumpiness is a protective shield against the world’s injustices, like having to deal with his nosy, scrap collecting neighbor of many years, Kolehmainen (Silu Seppälä), who appears to spy on him and hilariously hears everything he says (which he confirms, at one point, breaking the third wall), becoming the bane of his existence, or his two straight arrow sons Hessu (Iikka Forss) and Pekka (Ville Tiihonen), who seem hell-bent on pushing him into a retirement home, afraid of losing their inheritance money, skeptical that he can live on his own and manage his extensive property, believing it’s all for the best, yet utterly blind to the obvious, as that’s the last place he wants to be.
We see the Grump speaking to a tree trunk with his and his late wife’s initials carved on it, as she meant everything to him, leaving a giant void in her absence, yet their home which they shared together provides him with mementos and traces of her familiarity, offering a comfort that he can’t find anywhere else. This is an essential aspect of his life, the core of his being, finding it hard to move on, seeing no obvious signs when he speaks to her, strangely concluding “Silence was always a sign of consent for us,” where one thing that may be surprising for some is that when you get older you appreciate things a little more. An examination of the brooding Finnish male, there is no escaping the pull of national nostalgia and the problematic masculinity repeatedly evoked as part of the national mentality, where the Grump is happier working with an axe in his hand cutting wood, or finding himself alone in the rural landscapes of forests and lakes with nobody bothering him than he is being around people. While he’s clearly taken with Saimi, particularly her headstrong individualism and special fortitude, it’s another thing to acknowledge it, where the man would rather die a thousand deaths than openly reveal his feelings, where his attempts at making a compliment are a picture of awkwardness, but he’s impressed that she’ll stop what she’s doing and go on an adventure at a moment’s notice, never having to explain herself. Accordingly, they go on motorcycle rides together, or camp in the woods, where she eagerly jumps in the lake under the moonlight, but he’s torn by the idea that he’s betraying his wife, feeling guilt and remorse, but a good thing is a good thing, and he enjoys her company, even if he won’t admit it. Surprisingly, Saimi has a black daughter Kukka (Ona Huczkowski) who’s a police officer that she’s extremely proud of, as she’s clever and equally free-spirited, the exact opposite of his clueless sons, who offer him no comfort whatsoever, as their concerns simply exist on another wavelength, tone deaf to what he’s going through, where it’s clear they’re missing any deep human connection. Yet they’re all brought together for an outdoor, family style reunion that has a Buñuelian wit and humor about it, suggesting the world is never what it seems, as underneath the cantankerous irascibility there’s a distinct possibility of romance and hope in the air, making this a crowd pleaser, winning the Audience Choice award for an international feature at the Chicago Film Festival (Audience Awards Presented at 60Th Chicago International ...).
