Magnus

Kadri Kousaar's first film comes dangerously close to endorsing the views of its young protagonist, who besides being eager to end his own life is also a pretentious jerk.

Delivered into the care of his prostitute-patronizing slacker of a father (played by the real-life father of a suicide), Magnus experiments with drugs, hits on his own sister, and ruminates on his childhood lung disease. Then he gazes upon a swamp for minutes at a time. The philosophical content of this movie is offensively crude.

So far reviewers in Seattle (meaning SIFF) are not impressed. The showing is on June 2.

I have seen the film and must admit that it is very good attempt for someone who is making her debut. Fact that film is related with really happened story does not weaken the film itself. It is story of father who have made mistake and throughout this film he shares us his pain. But we must not forget that it is still a truth of art not the reality. And also note that if we didn't know that father character is played by origin person - there would never come out any question of ethics. It makes us think of it and about many other things. And that is important for me!

Nice film with excellent camera work.

"Magnus" has something to say about love, parenthood, sex and suicide but not necessarily in that order. The problem is that its pretensions get in the way of us caring about its characters and really understanding what it's trying to accomplish.

The title character is a lonely, confused teenager (played by Estonian pop star Kristjan Kasearu) who has attempted suicide at least twice. Much of the film centers around us watching Magnus as he wanders aimlessly through life, doing drugs with his dad, going to a brothel, asking his sister to have sex with him, etc. He seems totally bored and disinterested most of the time and while this may be part of his condition, it becomes contagious and we begin to feel the same way.

One of the problems lies with the performance of Kasearu, who while extremely handsome is also mostly expressionless and never allows us into Magnus' head or heart.

The other issue is with writer/director Kadri Kousaar's pretentious style which involves unnecessarily avant-garde camera angles and opaque lighting that quickly put us into an intellectual and emotional stupor. "Magnus" is a film that's so caught up in its own 'ideas' that it ends up leaving us cold.

A good effort from a young director. Some of the previous comments are peculiar. Particularly the ones posted in consecutive days by "different" users from several countries, saying basically the same (making negative personal remarks about the director). For someone in Lebanon and Slovenia and wherever else, people seem to know a lot of details about an obscure celebrity from an obscure country. A personal crusade from a disgruntled former admirer perhaps? Anyway, this is a movie website and the comments should stick to the movies. If you really want to wash dirty laundry, go do it somewhere else. It's not like there isn't plenty of space for that in the internet. And as for accusing the director of being "self-involved"... Does anyone get into any kind of artistic expression without being self-involved?

Being an Estonian myself, I have to begin with by saying that this is one of the very few Estonian films I've seen that I WOULD watch even if it was not an Estonian film - in my opinion, it was well done, especially considering it being Kadri Kõusaar's first film ever, and yes, she is hated in Estonia, but no, I didn't feel her showing off in this film not once. It was Magnus's story and it was told in a beautiful and subtle manner, at times it was a bit artsy and might have contained too may scenes of Kristjan Kasearu (who surprised me quite a bit as well, as I really do not care much about his music) looking all dreamy and disturbing, but overall, it is a film that gets you hooked and does not let go. The bizarreness of dad-son relationship, the easiness with which the film treats the most difficult of subjects (and thus makes them shout and stand up even more), the haunting music - I was taken aback. On the other hand, if you're the type of person who minds when characters are unreal in films (don't have names, for instance) or is shocked by sexual references, it might be a good idea not to watch it after all, I suppose. But I think that for many people, this film makes sense, it clicks, and no, you don't have think that Magnus or his dad are normal or cool or whatever for this to happen - there are other layers to it than just the plot line! Oh yeah, and all the fuss about ethics and court banning the film - I would just like to know where to draw the line. To me, this film was a piece of fiction, probably even more surreal than what one usually gets in a mainstream blockbuster. Of course I'm not involved in the actual story and I have no idea how the mother of the actual boy feels, but it seems to me that now, with all the media attention, it might be even harder for her - and people will want to see the "forbidden fruit" even more. And they will.