Musta Jaa (Berlinale review)

Posted on February 13, 2008 by E
Filed Under Reviews |

Essentially a tale of marital infidelity Mustaa Jaa (Black Ice) is the story of the betrayed woman taking it upon herself to find the other woman in her husband’s life. As with the first movie I watched at the Berlinale, this one begins with nudity. A mature couple, in bed, enjoying a pre-birthday party roll in the sack. We are made intimately familiar with Saara (Outi Mäenpää), the main character in the film, by watching her writhe in bed in the throes of passion. Moments later we are shown how she deals with learning that she has been cheated upon when she discovers a half-used pack of condoms in her husband’s guitar case. She makes a scene at the birthday party that follows, but because this is not Bollywood, the scene is remarkably free of accusatory screaming and tears.
Not too long after, she visits her husband’s office and discovers the identity of her love rival, a girl named Tuuli (Ria Kataja). Before long she has enrolled in the self-defense class taught by the girl and begun socializing with her. More surprisingly for the protagonist (than for audiences) she really likes the ‘other woman.’ But of course, as things must go in a movie like this, things begin to get complicated and before long secrets are unveiled, feelings are hurt and somebody dies.
In its beats and its rhythms, Musta Jaa hits all the spots in the adultery-and-the-wronged-woman scheme of things. For a film whose subject matter is fairly serious, writer/director Petri Kotwica manages to inject a fair amount of comedy into the storyline. The scene where Saara’s husband Leo arrives at Tuuli’s apartment to find the twenty-two year old German boy Saara has spent the night and wonders if he is actually Tuuli’s lover is handled with a fine touch for the sublime ridiculousness in the situation.
Watching this film was the most surreal experience I have ever had in a movie theatre. It was a movie in a language I didn’t understand (Finnish) with subtitles in another language I didn’t understand (German). Even so I managed to follow the movie just fine. Naturally, I didn’t get some of the language jokes and one segment didn’t make sense to me, but overall I was fine with just the moving picture and people speaking in a made up language for all I was able to understand.
The experience gave me serious pause as a filmmaker and writer because I realized that this was the key to allowing a global audience to understand less widespread storytelling – the picture has to tell the story. Something Bollywood really doesn’t know how to do. In truth, with the exception of a few sight gags, most of our movies play like filmed radio plays and as such diminish the value of most pictures outside the Indian diaspora.
Like nearly all the films I’ve watched at the festival, this one feels like it could have used a little trimming. The performances are good and the story, while mildly soap operatic moves along at a decent enough pace to generate interest through it’s running time. The film also features one of the most bizarre setups to a scene of Sapphic erotica, I’ve ever seen. You have to watch it to believe it.
I don’t know how many people, outside of Scandinavia will get to watch this film and being at a festival like the Berlinale reminds me of how small our exposure to cinema on a global level is. A state of affairs that needs to change, sooner rather than later, because bizarrely ridiculous though the state of affairs might be in Musta Jaa, it really doesn’t beat our soaps for gaps in logic.

   

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