centinel822

When I was 4 or 5, I had a nightmare that my parents had gotten on a train at night and left me alone. I woke up crying and ran to my parents' room to make sure they were there. As an adult, this seems a bit silly, but as a child, it was terrifying. What could be worse than being abandoned by the people who were your protectors and your bridge to the rest of the world?

Skinamarink tries to capture that feeling -- to make you remember what it was like to need a caretaker and to feel helpless when alone. I can honestly say that I have never seen anything like this before. I have seen reviewers mention Lynch and Kafka. To me, it felt most like Tarkovsky - particularly Stalker. Clearly, this is a divisive film. As others have said, if you don't buy into the concept, it will be a slow 100 minutes. That said, my advice to help people connect with this film is twofold. First, watch this at home, preferably in the dark and alone. I think this is the only way to feel the sense of abandonment and lingering dread. You will not get the emotion of this movie if there are distractions. Second, if you can, watch it with subtitles. There are some hardcoded subs in the film to help the viewer understand the quiet voices, but the subs I used helped identify some of the random sounds and who is speaking. This is important because most of the action occurs off camera.

I don't want to be reductive, but let's face it, you're reading this review to decide if this movie is one you want to watch. I don't want to tell you what happens, because I wouldn't want to deprive you of seeing the story unfold for yourself. So no spoilers. I will say that the themes in this movie are universal, particularly the individual's struggle against injustice from those in power.

I suspect every culture has a noted hero who struggled against oppressive authority (e.g., William Wallace, Rob Roy, Pan Singh Tomar, Tadas Blinda, and Ned Kelly). Here, the hero and victim is humble Elen Skum, a simple rural woman who wished to worship in her own way and to protect her family from the scourge of alcohol. While not as exciting a tale as many of her fellow rebels', it is all the more poignant for its simplicity. Elen, a simple, rural mother and wife, stakes it all to save her family. She, and her family and friends, are too innocent to understand the forces arrayed against them, but they are a hard people tempered by an unforgiving climate. Each sides' refusal to give ground ultimately lead to tragic consequences.

Story aside, the acting is amazing. While there were a couple of editing hiccups early in the film, the sparse beauty of the country and the surprisingly good performances(particularly from Ms. Jusso) more than make up for any such quibbles. I really enjoyed the insight into this Nordic culture, and would encourage anyone looking for a thoughtful movie dealing with the theme of oppression to give it a shot.

Parts Per Billion follows the intertwined stories of three couples at different stages in their lives who are dealing with their relationships during a time of global crisis. Each couple is dealing with their own issues within the context of larger events. Those seeking scenes of mass hysteria and destruction will be disappointed. This is a relationship movie, through and through.

It's no surprise that the cast is terrific, and do the best with what they have to work with. Whatever faults may exist, the writers and cast create believable and interesting characters. The non-linear nature of the story -- the scenes jump from couple to couple and from time to time -- can be a tad confusing at times, but it was probably necessary to provide a feeling that something is happening. This is important, because nothing actually is happening. To use a cliché, it's like the characters are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic without even acknowledging that its sinking. There is an unreal feel to how the looming external crisis is ignored by pretty much everyone until it is on top of them. For this reason, the film wastes the whole concept of impending doom and leaves us dealing with normal couples dealing with normal issues.

Perhaps it was the director's intent to show how we get so swept up in our own personal affairs that we can't see the big picture, but it just seems to me to be a waste of a good premise. I can't help but compare Parts Per Billion to Another Earth. Both are small-budget films that deal with tragic relationships in the shadow of bigger events, but the later film was able to tie the two things together. This, too, could have been a poignant film, but it comes up short.