Snowman's Land

I was at the German premiere night and I love this film. Kaurismäki, Cohen Brothers, von Trier and Faith Akin all rolled into one. Great cast, but the scenes with Eva-Katrin Hermann, Thomas Wodianka and Jürgen Rißmann should be singled out for their blue touch paper comedic timing and dramatic control.

Lensed by Ralf M. Mendle on Red, there's not a single duff shot in the film. The script is a delight and the direction is masterly. Thomasz Thomson helmed this low-budget cult pic: he will definitely be back with another in-your-eye script and a way bigger production budget. Watch this space.

Disclaimer: I have no work or financial involvement in this film.

Walter is a professional killer who messed up a job. Therefore he has to leave the country and takes up an offer from the crime boss Berger to protect his house in the remote Carpathian mountains. His old friend Mickey - not the brightest one - comes along. What first looks like a holiday with little work turns out a nightmare when Berger's girlfriend is killed by accident.

"Snowman's Land" is full of fantastic black humor in the style of the Coen Brothers. The perfect cast, music and the setting in the snowy remoteness create a very atmospheric universe. Although some narrative threads may not tie in the end - until then the surprising turns of the story are highly entertaining.

I love the title. I think it's a nice wordplay. But when the movie starts you almost feel that it could go completely wrong. The voice over feels wrong. Then it does seem as if it does mix in with the mood of the film. A very slow moving thriller if you will. Very bad things may happen here and nobody may notice.

But that's also sort of its downfall. The fact, that it is very uneven, having great scenes followed by very weak scenes. Great performances with just completely weird dialog. Potential in the script that does not get fully explored and exposed. Ideas that seem to get thrown out the window halfway through. Still in its weirdness it stays kind of engaging. If you like weird that is.

A unique and, to me, hilarious film. The dialog is a treasure, with just the right density for the setting. The characters are well and carefully developed, for the relatively shallow people they are meant to be. I've seen it compared to "Dumb and Dumber", but that is really not a meaningful comparison, as this is a much darker and existential film. Indeed, there are a serious of tortuous situations the two main characters are run through. The film comes across a bit like a Tarantino in the woods but without the 70s baggage and with a touch of Stephen King. The film is full of great twists and turns and well paced, considering the idyllic setting. I cannot wait for another film from this writer/director. It is very nice that it was picked up by Netflix in the US. You will like it a lot or not at all.

Snowman's Land is a superb exercise in suspense. While the story is character driven and remains absurdly plausible until the end, Snowman's Land is in no way predictable. Walter, a sub-par hit man, is summoned to a remote mountain lodge to work for a crime boss who had disappeared from the scene several years before. Walter's colleague and fellow hit man turns out to be an old acquaintance, Mickey, who has his own history of botched jobs and brushes with death. The action is a sustained, deliberate adrenaline rush that eschews the cut-happy editing blitz of most dark comedies about the criminal underworld. Snowman's Land makes full use of the ecosystem at hand and it seems like the celluloid itself is covered in a fresh dusting of snow.