2 commentaires
This Finnish-Hungarian co-production, originating after a wish by President Kekkonen, was reportedly a hit in Hungary but failed completely in Finland, for obvious reasons. The subject - marrying a Westerner to get permission to travel abroad - was close to many Eastern Europeans at the time, but irrelevant to Finns.
As a child, I thought the film was awful. I just re-saw in a cinema, appropriately with a mixed Finnish-Hungarian audience, and it is not as bad as I remembered but not good either. The pace is too slow for comedy, the characters too thin stereotypes for drama, and there are no surprises - some nice details though. The actors are competent, but the technical crew wasn't - there are two scenes with a microphone long visible at the top of the frame!
The wedding sequence seems to have been shot in some regional museum and gives a laughably old-fashioned idea of the Finnish countryside in 1980.
As a child, I thought the film was awful. I just re-saw in a cinema, appropriately with a mixed Finnish-Hungarian audience, and it is not as bad as I remembered but not good either. The pace is too slow for comedy, the characters too thin stereotypes for drama, and there are no surprises - some nice details though. The actors are competent, but the technical crew wasn't - there are two scenes with a microphone long visible at the top of the frame!
The wedding sequence seems to have been shot in some regional museum and gives a laughably old-fashioned idea of the Finnish countryside in 1980.
Hungarian taxi driver girl's man emigrates to the west as a dissident in 1980 leaving his girlfriend behind. She and her clever girlfriends finally think up a plan of how to join him. The plan goes like she should marry a West-European guy, so she'll be allowed to leave the country. This is a negative "green card" with the most positive content. The guy they picked happens to be Finnish and nice... This film has a great deal of sociographical value on both Finnish and Hungarian sides . . a very-very FRESH movie ..