Muukalainen

I really wanted to like this one, as I sat down in a fairly empty theatre at Göteborg Film Festival. The people making the film were there, they were in competition for a prize, so I felt that friendly feeling - let's hope this is the forgotten gem. And it started well enough, slow and with contrasting dark and bright images, holes to look through, absolute silence and loud shrieks - that were repeated a bit too much. The main character, a mute adolescent, just leaving boyhood, filled his every shot with absolute certainty. But it seemed there was no story. I hoped I was stupid, and missed it somehow so I totally stayed alert. And a conflict slowly emerged - OK so this may go somewhere after all. But no, all this good filming and the kid's fine acting just seemed pointless; a film needs a story, needs a story..... And this one could have had a great one, but It seems getting artsy was more important than polishing the script.

For once we get a genuinely ambitious Finnish art film that is actually shown in mainstream theaters, but of course it flops commercially and receives mainly lukewarm reviews from the most popular critics. We cinephiles can only hope that more films like The Visitor will be made in Finland in the future, maybe then the state of our cinema will eventually reach that of Sweden and Denmark.

Anyway, the plot of The Visitor is very simple. In an ambiguous era, possibly during the second World War, a nameless mute boy (Vitali Bobrov) lives in a remote house in the middle of a forest with his crippled mother (Emilia Ikäheimo) and regularly pays visits to his father (Jorma Tommila) who has been imprisoned for some unspecified crime. One day a strange unknown man (Pavel Liska) arrives to the house, a bullet in his side and barely conscious. The boy's father informs him that the man will stay with them for a while and that they should stay away from the stranger. He also gives the boy a small box that contains something the father deems extremely important and tells the boy to keep it a secret. Time passes but the strange man shows no signs of leaving the family, much to the father's chagrin. Who is the man? What is in the box? What is the boy hiding in an old, dried up well? No questions have clear answers in the world of The Visitor.

The film was the director and sound designer's diploma work for their studies at an arts university, and they sure have done an excellent job on their respective fields. The ominous tones, echoes, creaks, hums and raven shrieks create an eerie atmosphere that perfectly fits the visual style that is both bleak and rich at the same time. The cinematography by Tuomo Hutri is a real treat for the eyes, from the green, misty forests to the white winter snow and the prison's dark corridors. Partly due to the visual style, the film has been compared to the works of Andrei Tarkovsky, but director Valkeapää has said that he has taken more influence from the silent era masters like Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau. The importance of silence is very evident in The Visitor indeed: the first words are spoken almost 18 minutes into the film, the protagonist never utters a word and the few other characters rarely speak more than one sentence at a time.

With so much emphasis on non-verbal communication, the actors' impact on the whole becomes even more significant than it normally is. Luckily all of the four lead performers handle their roles with natural ease and present their characters' inner feelings on their faces only. The most notable role is given to the young Vitali Bobrov in his first acting job; his solemn, blue eyes carry a sense of sadness all the way through. The menacing Jorma Tommila doesn't have to put on any kind of act to be creepy, his bearded appearance is enough to make his nature clear by itself. Pavel Liska hides the visitor's sinister sides under his handsome looks and it's not hard to see how the family's lonely mother warms to him during his time at the house.

What do all the strange details of the film mean? The boy has grown used to spending time alone, not only by living in an isolated house but by actually hiding under the floorboards of his room where he can see into the bedroom of his mother. He also has a strong connection to nature and animals: shots of ravens, insects and maggots are a recurring theme in the story – all classic symbols of death. Related to the gloomy theme are also the broken egg with a dead chicken fetus inside and the injured horse by the waterfall. Besides the dark overtones, I think family relationships are also a theme the film explores, as the boy, the mother and the father all have their own ways of coping with the presence and eventual departure of the new man in the house. The director has also said that on a child's mind, imagination is still equal to reality and since the plot is seen through the eyes of a young boy, a more dreamlike, less literal state of mind is also constantly present in the story.

Even though I agree with some critics about the 100-minute runtime being a little long for an atmosphere-driven tale like The Visitor, I feel the film very much deserves more attention than it has received now. It is wonderfully refreshing to see this type of "pure cinema" being made by Finns in Finnish, and I wish director Valkeapää will step behind the camera soon again. In the meanwhile, I urge everybody to watch this film and enjoy the visuals, sounds and performances. If possible, don't miss a chance to see it in a theater – this is the type of film that greatly benefits from a distraction-free environment.

The Visitor is a film about a mute farm boy whose father has recently been imprisoned. He lives with his very young looking mother, a woman who doesn't say much to him. As you can imagine, this is a very quiet movie with few lines of dialogue. The early scenes of the movie focus on the work that the boy does to maintain the farm, as well as the the time he spends exploring the scenic countryside. There are definitely some Romantic touches here; J.-P. Valkeapää pulls out all the stops to show how appealing nature can be and there are even some stone ruins nearby. Really, the strong point is not even so much the scenery itself, though, it's the marvelous use of unusual camera angles and reflected image that makes the early sequences so amazing.

Before long the plot gets started when the Visitor shows up; he's a stranger with a fairly serious injury that it takes a considerable amount of time to recover from. The boy is very cautious of him, especially when it becomes clear that he is likely one of the father's criminal associates. Even after his recovery seems complete the Visitor doesn't immediately leave, though, and a good portion of the film concerns his interactions with the boy and the mother.

This is not the kind of film you really watch for the plot, though, its appeal is atmosphere and visuals. It's a film that will only be enjoyed by the art-house crowd that likes long, contemplative takes and striking visual compositions. Some of the visual tactics combined with the actions of the mostly silent characters reminded me of silent film-making at its best. I felt that the film went on a bit too long and it was just a bit too mysterious, particularly near the end, but it's still quite worth seeing.

Jukka-Pekka Valkeapää's The Visitor (not to be confused with the Thomas McCarthy picture starring Richard Jenkins) carries on the vital lesson of Aki Kaurismäki, according to whom images speak more potently than words, especially in Finnish cinema. Valkeapää doesn't go as far as Kaurismäki did (he actually made a silent film, Juha, in 1999), but gets pretty close thanks to his bold narrative choice of having a mute protagonist.

The character concerned by that condition is a young boy who lives in the woods of Northern Finland with his mother, while the old man serves jail time. One day, a stranger shows up at their doorstep, demanding some hospitality. The mother accepts, whereas the father, who hears word of the recent turn of events, advises the boy to get rid of the man on the grounds that something terrible might happen.

The plot is as painstakingly simple as they come (even Kaurismäki tends to add a little something extra in his scripts), perhaps because Valkeapää isn't really interested in story development (as highlighted by the blatantly unrevealing conclusion), or character for that matter. The only person in the film who gets more than his due share of attention is the boy, whose eyes and face are the closest we, the audience, can hope to receive as an emotional bridge connecting us to the movie. He's on camera something like 95% of the running time, and the director uses his silence to pinpoint the real selling point of the film: the kid's relationship with nature, the only thing as quiet as he. Since the story takes place in winter, Valkeapää guides us, through the protagonist's eyes, into a landscape so beautiful it beats the living crap out of the best Christmas postcards (the only better option is to actually be there during the holiday season).

It's the uncanny combination of cinematography and central performance (the boy is staggering as the film reaches its climax) that elevates The Visitor just as much as is necessary to be above the standards of a conventional (read: dull) drama. If nothing else, it certainly will make people want to see Finland with their own eyes (even though the film was actually shot in Estonia).

7,5/10