Joki

Excellent movie, a realistic picture of contemporary Finland, touching and profound. One of the best Finnish films ever made. Captures marvelously the everyday life in a Central Finland small town, people's desires and weaknesses, joys and sorrows. The bright early fall sunshine creates a cool atmosphere to this lucid examination of people in a welfare society. Lampela is indeed one of the most promising Finnish filmmakers. He shows that it is possible to make gripping movies without machine guns and bloodshed. His next film Eila is also worth seeing although the story of cleaning women fighting for their jobs is not quite as universally appealing as the destinies in Joki.

Half a dozen short stories of varying interest enlighten us about life in Finland. These stories are interwoven and each contains a scene in which a sonic boom is heard. This indicates that the events depicted happen at the same time.

The film begins with a bungy jump which promises some excitement but the early stories are quite low key. The film improves so stick with it. Two broken marriages in stories that follow provide plenty of drama while a scene in a hospital gives us a terminally ill patient begging for pain relief. The last moments with his wife are both convincing and moving.

While the various scenes of family life take place in Finland, the themes are of a general nature wherever you happen to live.

Collections of short stories are rarely as satisfying as a good tense 90-minute drama.

The Finnish version of Robert Altman's "Short Cuts", set in the small rural town of Äänekoski. The episodes present a kaleidoscope of the eternal events, problems and emotions of human life: joy and love, deception and disillusionment, hopelessness and death. I was particularly impressed by two episodes. The first is the story of the young waitress, who tries to stir up a romance for his co-workers: she radiates an overwhelming joy of love and life. The other episode presents and old man dying in a hospital and his wife trying to help him die with dignity. Particularly striking is the way the old couple have to fight their way against the humiliating practices of the hospital and their loneliness contrasted with the "routines" of the hospital crew (despite the signs of occasional empathy). Compared with Altman's classic, this movie is perhaps less professional, but it is definitely a great piece of art.

Set on a Saturday morning, "The River" tells six stories that take place during a sonic boom that changes lives forever. The film opens and closes with one of the stories as two boys try to save Anni, a single mother who wants to drown herself and her baby in the local river. The other episodes include the story of the chronically broke Esa, an unsuccessful musician who comes to his father's 60th birthday party with the intention of replenishing his ailing finances. Then there's the exuberant pizza waitress Leena, who is walking on air because she is in love and wants to matchmake her workmates to spread her happiness. Ilpo feels sick and reluctantly goes home early from work to discover that his wife is having an affair. An old couple are having their last moments together, with the husband in hospital with no hope of recovery. They battle bureaucracy to get the hospital to let him go home to die with dignity. Santeri, a Year 12 student, is on his way to see a girl he loves - but he has to sort out similar feelings he has for a male friend. Finally, a young girl falls in love for the first time in her life. We meet these people as they are confronted by great sorrow, unexpected happiness, difficult decisions, the end of a marriage, and matters of life and death.

This is a top finnish film this year,although Tango Kabaree comes close.The Director Lampela made couple of years back another nice little film called Rakastin epätoivoista naista (I was in love with a desperate woman).Joki is truly true-to-life beautiful film of one saturday afternoon in a little village/town.The actors are maybe not so handsome or beautiful but they do act beautifully.I certainly do hope that many of them get JUSSI statue (finnish OSCAR) next spring.I think this film could make it abroad as well.