Sügisball

Finally an Estonian film that combines "international" know-how in film-making with a story that is at the same time embedded in the Estonian context and universal. The film describes the life of a series of characters in Lasnamäe, a rather grey bloc house area in Tallinn. And the good news: it avoids all the clichés that could come up when thinking about such depressing neighborhoods. Sügisball is deeply human and the characters are all very complex. The movie shows "the human condition" in autumn colours without abandoning all hope. Visually it is very impressive how Lasnamäe is shown. In some shots the audience is literally diving into this monster out of concrete. We see the daily fight of the protagonists to find love and human contact in an environment that "was created for the future". Full of warmth and depth the film depicts the Lasnamäe in all our minds. Very convincing work!

My absolutely favorite Estonian film today and ever! It's about happiness and love (characters live life without love, very depressing and empty life). "Sügisball" is based on beautiful book by Mati Unt. Director said this film is for people with gentle soul and weak liver. Characters in this film are so real, they give foreign viewer very good idea about Estonia in post-Soviet timing. Beautiful music score, 10 star cinematography, final results strong and sophisticated. Best of all characters is probably architect Maurer (and not because I like him!) But all others are also deep and well-designed. May be director can be called Estonian Altman? I think so.

Movies like this are easy to like. Dramatic, brutal stories told with black humor, interwoven in a way that makes it all a journey into a theme. Magnolia and Shortcuts comes to mind as great examples of this. Sügisball is a good attempt with high ambition, but sadly it fails to follow through on it.

Perhaps if the movie was a bit longer it would not be as obvious, but the characters within the stories told are all to similar. Not only in their loneliness (which, to me, seems to be the central theme of it all), but also in their situation, age, etc. I wish the stories were a bit more varied, as it would not have made the movie as dull as it was at times. But as mentioned, this could maybe have been fixed by shortening it by quite a bit.

That said, there are some great scenes in this movie, and some interesting and memorable characters.

Considering the close geographical, ethnic and linguistic connections between Estonia and Finland, it is a shame how few Estonian films get proper commercial releases here in Finland. In spite of my limited knowledge about the small country's cinema, I enjoyed director Veiko Õunpuu's first feature film Autumn Ball a lot.

Based on a 1979 novel by Mati Unt but set in present day, the film examines the separate but intertwining lives of several people living in the colossal Soviet era housing units in the Lasnamäe district of Tallinn. Mati (Rain Tolk) is a bohemian writer who has just been left by his wife (Mirtel Pohla), while Maurer (Juhan Ulfsak), a trendy architect, is still together with his girlfriend Ulvi (Tiina Tauraite) despite his growing sense of disillusion with his life and the people around him. Theo (Taavi Eelmaa) works as a doorman and is also completely bored with his job, coping with his frustration by seeking numerous sexual encounters with various women. Laura (Maarja Jakobson) is a single mother of a young daughter Lotta (Iris Persson), who is in turn approached by a middle-aged Finnish barber named Kaski (Sulevi Peltola), upsetting her mother and caretaker.

Life in the suburb appears to be highly forlorn; the methods to escape the banal reality range from getting drunk and having a lot of meaningless sex to just watching television or making seemingly obnoxious but secretly sincere advances to whoever is close. Although the overall mood remains desolate almost all the way throughout, there is plenty of deadpan comedy to be found here and there, such as Mati's unsuccessful attempts of stalking his wife, discreetly buying pornography or talking his way out of getting a parking ticket. The film also avoids judging the characters despite their flaws, particularly Kaski, whose true nature is cutely implied even when he is shown little respect inside the story world. Finnish veteran actor Sulevi Peltola is as good as always in his small role, but the Estonian actors deliver enjoyable performances in their quiet roles too.

Narrowing it all down to just the most common elements shared by all the characters, the film's theme could be said to be loneliness and difficulty of communication. Õunpuu utilizes many visual techniques to emphasize the states of mind of his characters: the sickly greenish glow of the exterior scenes at night and the angular shape of the towering apartment buildings against a cloudy sky look great per se, and the carefully planned mise en scène of the wide static shots of run-down urban landscapes follow the tried and true traditions of art cinema beautifully. A spoken reference to the works of the Swedish director legend Ingmar Bergman also cements Autumn Ball's thematic connection to the continuum of similar efforts by earlier filmmakers. However, the film does not only consist of quiet long takes like many stereotypical art films; Õunpuu moves the camera whenever necessary to follow his characters in their daily (and nightly) wanderings, even getting outright shaky at points.

Even if the director's reluctance to provide neat little conclusions and some story lines receiving more attention than others result in there being a risk of the whole feeling slightly incoherent, it is always pleasant to see this type of visually driven storytelling amidst the talky soap opera style of many less skilled directors. The constantly compelling atmosphere keeps Õunpuu's collection of human fates fascinating from start to end, so Autumn Ball can be unhesitatingly recommended to all admirers of good-looking and tragic but sometimes also hopeful stories.

SUGISBALL(Autumn Ball) (dir. Veiko Ounpuu) The film is a series of interconnected stories of disparate characters who live in a dreary housing complex in Tallinn, Estonia where the ugly environs amplify the emotional separation. The film's tone is one of deadpan 'Black Comedy' that communicates histrionic sadness and pent-up romantic longing that at times comes across as mildly amusing. One extremely funny segment (that had nothing to do with the movie) was where an overweight, assistant doorman impersonates Michael Jackson's music video,'Beat It'. This can only be seen to be believed and is nothing short of hysterical. Overall, the film provides very little resolution, but the film's attitude and spirit are somewhat reminiscent of Baltic directors Ingmar Bergman and Krzysztof Kieslowski.