Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Temptation of St.Tony by Veiko Ounpuu

Film #3 at the BFI London Film Festival 2010

The Temptation of St.Tony This was my first Estonian film (at first, I thought it was Finnish) and it was… uhmmm… different. The movie opens with Tony, a factory manager, attending the funeral of his father and from thereon, events spin out of control. In a jagged, surreal, allegoric narrative, Tony spins around a bleak, white landscape getting manhandled by goons, almost being eaten alive, making love to a dark haired beauty, running naked with only the Estonian flag between him and fierce winter.

The unforgiving land, grim music and whipping snow are the only constants as the movie wavers between real life, dreams, nightmares, questions and incomplete answers. Stark and spell-binding, Tony’s trips into the netherworld of morality may be enjoyable only in bits but are always thoroughly engrossing.

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