Honey Baby

This is total hogwash. It's an unfortunate testament to how stupid people can be that this is not voted any lower than it is... But I guess very people actually saw it. The stuff about Russia is trite and badly done, and the fake singer-songwriter music is amusingly bad and mawkish. The whole story feels as though it were written by a 16 year old who knows very little about Russia or what goes on between men and women. It tries to cover up it lack of intelligence, authenticity and realism with a kind very-below par Lynchian surrealism that is frankly cringeworthy. The main romantic lead is so annoying and anaemic he could be studying in art in Brighton, and the only slightly good bit is the sub-porn Vodka advert club bit with loads of scantily models and lechy old men. Unfortunately this is a fantasy dream section and the audience is forced to return to the drearily silly reality of the film all too soon.

When you live in a small town in southern Germany, it's not so easy too see Finnish films, or any independent films in general. So the retrospective of the Kaurismaki brothers at the Munich film festival this year was a great opportunity to see more Kaurismaki films. I have seen some films of Aki, but only one or two of Mika. "Honey Baby" was very impressing, it took me to Eastern Europe, to places I have not seen before. The pictures were beautiful and the music fitted perfectly to the atmosphere, which was strange in a nice way, almost like in dream. I liked the actors from different countries, Henry Thomas is very convincing as a musician and the Russian actress Irina Bjorklund is very touching. I hope this film will come to the cinemas, because I would like to see it again.

I really enjoyed it. Even if it was basically a simple love story, it was somehow different, a film to think about. I'm normally not a big fan of road movies, but this one somehow got me under its spell. The scenery was very special, I felt that the film was shot in real locations, in places that I haven't seen before.

The film had many surrealistic elements, and sometimes it wasn't clear for me, how the story would develop, but I suppose it was meant to be so and it made me more curious, how it would go on. The main characters were somewhat indifferent in the beginning, but I got to like them in the course of the story. It was romantic but not cheesy. I guess it made an impact on me, otherwise I wouldn't probably be commenting on it.

And, I almost forgot, the soundtrack is great!