Letters to Father Jacob

A woman newly out of prison (Kaarina Hazard) is given a job reading letters for a blind priest (Heikki Nousiainen). Leila is antagonistic and unapproachable, but finds the priest’s isolated home a way to transition back to being among normal people again. The letters she reads are from people asking for prayers for different reasons, which Father Jacob does. He sends back letters with hopeful messages, which Leila writes and sends for him. Sometimes the people send money donations, and this tempts Leila with thoughts to abandon her job and the priest. Slowly, though, we know her story and how it has shaped her personality and how Father Jacob draws her out in his slow unobtrusive manner. While she does hurtful things, she also does selfless things, such as pretending to read non-existent letters when the letters slowly stop coming.

CIFF 2011: Le Havre

Le Havre won top honors at CIFF 2011.  While I agree it was a fine film, I am not in agreement that it was the best film there this year. It's still an arthouse film that falls validly and easily into award territory.  This is another in a line of proletariat dramas from Finnish director Aki Kuarismaki (whose best work in my opinion is The Man Without a Past, a big prizewinner itself in 2003).  It is less bleak than some of his other films like The Match Factory Girl or Lights in the Dusk.  It tells the story of a aging shoeshine man who helps a young African refugee in the harbor town of Le Havre, France.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

This film is not easily put into one or two genres. I saw it during a non-holiday season (and although this is about the Santa Claus figure, it is not a holiday film in the traditional sense). It contains bits of a family drama, an action film, a science fiction/fantasy premise, as well as some horror elements.

The story takes place in a Finnish mountain town. The townsfolk learn of archaeologists doing some digging further up the mountain, who have been blasting apparently for seismic experiments. The small village's main source of income is from reindeer meat and one day some citizens, including the protagonists, the boy Pietari and his father, have discovered all the reindeer dead by the fence restricting access to the mountain. They are angry of course, believing the scientists' explosives have scared the wolves out of their habitat and the wolves are attacking the deer. Pietari's father protects his property from wolves by building a wolf pit with stakes. They catch something, but instead of an animal it is an old man.