November

2017 folkloric romance

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A love triangle in a superstitious land.

Something like this, steeped in so much Eastern European folklore and a highly-artistic black and white, might be expected to be a stodgily humorless endeavor, but I was pleased that this has so much humor. Even so, I had to penalize this a point for an audible fart. But then, you know what? I remembered that I'm a huge fan of farting in movies and gave that point right back!

That's especially true when the offending flatulator is a Satan-created slave creature called a Kratt. I couldn't tell if it was stop-animated or a product of some pretty good CGI, but I loved seeing the thing in every one of its incarnations. Once, it even gets to be a snowman and will easily be my favorite talking snowman that I see all year, at least in a movie. And yes, I'm aware that a Frozen sequel is coming out sometime this year. I'm not even sure of Olaf farts. He probably does. When the Kratt in this movie farts, it's in a wonderful moment that takes place while a character fiddles with a jew's harp. I loved the shambling movement of this Kratt thing. Maybe not when it demonstrates an ability to helicopter into the air while stealing (or moving?) a cow in an early scene. But when it's a three-legged rolling thing with a skull? That's pretty awesome to see.

I'm actually doubting my knowledge of geography after typing confidently in that first paragraph that Estonia is in Eastern Europe. I actually have doubts that Estonia is a place at all and that this is all part of some elaborate practical joke. If it does in fact exist and is in fact in Eastern Europe, I'm not sure it's right of me to assume that it's filled with stodginess or humorlessness either. But I'm an American, so my lack of knowledge about world geography is expected and my impulse to stereotype people has to be excused.

Wherever this takes place, it's a a fun world. Seemingly, the story and the stories-within-that-story that take place in this world are a mashup of various folktales. A love triangle between a peasant girl, a peasant boy with higher aspirations, and the daughter of a fancy-pants aristocrat is at the center of things, but there are various side stories, and near the end, that snowman even shares a story of his own that I imagine has roots in Estonian folklore. This is a land filled with magic, werewolves, people turning into various animals, ghosts or bread-chomping spirits, witches, somnambulism, plague goats, and the devil, the latter played by a guy named Jaan Kooning with chortling glee. The people are superstitious, as seen in the hilarious way they try to escape from the wrath of the aforementioned plague goat--apparently, two asses are needed to avoid the plague--but they're also spiritual. There are references to Christianity here, but like the magic, the people are just using it to try to get ahead on earth or to feed their greed. I wish I had a better handle on what director Rainer Sarnet was getting at with the religious references.

My favorite bit of dialogue:

"Shall we make those pants dance?"
"Leave my pants be!"