LillaMy

Let's start with the bad points. Super Size Me was made on a semi-amateur basis. But even only a semi-professional documentary cannot commit the grave mistakes of basic film making rules. Good footage has 4 characteristics: the images must be sharp, properly exposed, stable and cropped. Footage out of focus is unacceptable even for home made family videos, let alone a documentary to be distributed. The unsteady images can be justified, and at some points unavoidable, but it usually just gives the spectator a headache. Also lighting - even in a documentary - should be taken care of. Many images were overexposed. The crop defines what is important, and it is presented in a balanced layout. This was many times completely missing. Film editing programs are now easy at hand and have lots of lovely built-in gadgets, that are fun to play with, but give the film a very cheap appearance. The overload of these gadgets makes Super Size Me really messy. For the content, the idea is interesting. But in the end, I knew no more of the subject than what is general knowledge. The only thing that shocked me, was that someone can mistake Jesus for George Bush, no matter how young they are. The actual outcome is shallow. I was left with the image that no adult knows what a calorie is, which I hope is not the real case. The storyline is hard to follow, because Morgan Spurlock has dragged in so many different subjects: the obesity of the nation, the effect of advertising, McDonald's food, general knowledge of Americans, the lawsuit against McDonald's, eating habits of schools... Each topic vast enough to make a documentary in itself. I myself found some of the scenes disgusting and very much out of point. I cannot see why a documentary on McDo's food should tell about fat surgery, which again is a topic in itself. Puking scenes brings to mind a teenage party with excessive drinking and its results. To the good points. It was funny. At times. Morgan Spurlock has a positive air around him. I hope also the film has some impact on the food industry, and especially school nutrition. All in all, a long home made film worth seeing once.

If you want some serious fun, this is not for you. It is impossible to apply the word serious to this film in any way. This is hilarious fun, but it probably doesn't appeal to foreigners. As a Finn, I laughed my ass off though, so that tears came into my eyes. The tagline said: "You'll laugh. Or cry and laugh", meaning that you will laugh, or you will be compelled to do it. It is a much used Finnish saying, and it was true.

The problem about Finnish films is that they are rarely understood by foreigners. Foreigners seem to have a problem with direct nudity, especially I've heard remarks of masculine nudity. Not one single scene showed nakedness in the way Hollywood films usually do (I will not go into details, you know all about it). But I won't generalise, go and see for yourself. Finnish people just have a very different approach and attitude towards nakedness...

Exaggeration is the key that builds the humour in this film. Saara's song was lovely, but the way it was filmed was really over tragic, making it in fact funny. And sweet. The reveling of the brothers is also very tragicomic. Just like in Pahat pojat or Pitkä, kuuma kesä.

This film is one of the sweetest ones on earth. The world and ideology that Tove Jansson created and called Moomindale, are something adults can also think about. If you are fed up with the invariable animations for children, where every once in a while there is a big fight and all you see is a dust cloud, Moomins are something definitely different. A worn-out cliché is to introduce a new villain now and again to make the film move on, and fortunately this Tove doesn't fall into that trap of clichés. One might think, that a story cannot work with only nice and lenient characters, that are not strong enough, but that is totally wrong. That is the magic of Tove: she has strengthened the characters by positive attributes. Only a few writers can do that successfully.