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Friday, September 05, 2008

Day 2 - Merry Christmas ≈karaoke √ Mika Kaurismaki's Three Wise Men sing

\http://www.swengi.fi/

FRIDAY, SEPT 5
DAY 2

THREE WISE MEN
5:30 pm
AMC 5

After a very tough pair of movies on Opening Day of TIFF08 over at Ryerson, it was time to sample the debut of the AMC to the festival. Last year this spot was still a hole in the ground and the fences were featured in the Incredible Hulk movie of the summer.

We had already sampled many movies before at the new AMC and noted its comfy seats and legroom. However, TIFF took things to a different level - it seems TIFF insists on trying to pack every theatre to the gills, so there is actually someone sitting beside you! and on both sides!

After some brief introductory remarks from Kaurismaki himself [ whose brother is Aki by the way ] - he's a very humourous man he is - with a Christmas setting replete with the ham and the Declaration of the Christmas Peace which is the tradition in Finland this could have been a light-hearted film filled with good cheer. There is a lot of cheer, of the liquid time, but the material becomes quite dense with pieces of dialogue verging on Bergman and the situations brimming with danger and irony [ and irony in the correct sense - not the American interpretation of irony as bitter and caustic ]. Santa Claus in Helsinki.

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