Must auk

Of course I had never even heard about this 2024 comedy titled "Must Auk" (aka "The Black Hole") prior to stumbling upon it by random chance here in 2025. And with it being a movie that I had neither heard about nor seen, of course I opted to give the movie a fair chance.

The narrative in the movie was strange, but in a good way. Writers Andrus Kivirähk, Armin Kõomägi and Moonika Siimets had definitely put together something truly unique and bizarre, but it worked out nicely, as it was oddly enjoyable and entertaining.

Given my very limited exposure to Finnish and Estonian cinema, then I was not familiar with a single actress or actor on the cast list. But the cast ensemble was good and the performances were rather good, which also did wonders for the overall enjoyment of the movie.

While the alien design was somewhat goofy, I will say that the effects were actually good and the aliens did come off as believable and realistic enough, well as realistic as aliens can be, but that is a discussion for another day. And having good special effects certainly helped to lift up the movie and promote the narrative.

If you are looking for something out of the ordinary and don't mind something oddly bizarre, then give "Must Auk" a chance.

My rating of director Moonika Siimets' 2024 movie "Must Auk" lands on a six out of ten stars.

I am surprised at the low rating, I hope people will start appreciating it more. Maybe one needs to have lived through the 90-ies in Estonia to appreciate it fully.

I would call it an allegorical social satire with a Lynchian twist. I laughed out loud quite a few times, and to some sequences I was mentally applauding.

I totally loved the characters, sometimes stereotypical, sometimes comically surreal, and how their stories are presented one by one, leaving one wonder till the end how exactly they will be connected.

It's not just a comedy, there are also darker moments in the movie, but wrapped into the unserious comical narrative.

I also loved the deliberately silly looking aliens, I am happy that the director has chosen not to make them CGI. It definitely adds to the absurdity of the scenes.

As a Finnish person it does feel quite weird that multiple people aspire to move here in this movie. For some reason they talk about residence permits, but you don't really need those, as both Estonia and Finland are in the EU, so you can move freely between these two countries. Or maybe this was supposed to happen in the early 90s and I just didn't get that.

It is nice to see movies from Estonia. They don't cross the gulf very often, even though one might assume our two peoples would have an interest in sharing more of our culture, because of linguistically it's pretty much us against the world.

The movie is an anthology of three loosely connected stories. While this has sci-fi elements, it doesn't really go into that territory very much and largely it doesn't even matter. It just makes this a little weirder, but you could very easily just take those elements out.

The thing about the individual stories is that they just happen. They don't have real structures or endings. In this regard the movie might not feel very satisfying, but at the same time, it is refreshing to see different approaches.

These are more like character pieces. We get to live with these people for a while as they have their struggles with their fears, their sexuality, their future and so on. Not all of them are that sympathetic, which is somewhat of a problem, but with three stories you don't spend too much time with any of them.

All in all, nothing ground breaking, but a fun little movie. If it wasn't for the language that has like a million speakers in the whole world, this would be a nice thing to play in the background while you do something else and pay attention when you know something important is about to happen.

After being subjugated by 100s of sci-fi movies and super heroes, this movie which might come across as a little weird at first, is also a breath of fresh air. It touches some fundamental societal/human failings in a delightful manner and unexpected ways, making this movie a light hearted caricatural comedy. I truthfully enjoyed it.

Beautiful grading and lighting, creating its own environment.

The characters are all delightful and hold their roles very well. A triptych that make you wonder where the story is going with unexpected denouement left to your positive imagination. I recommend to anyone fed up with action and CGI effects.