I'm on a roll - I really liked Hatching, my first Finnish horror movie! This was recommended to me by a college friend and she was right about it. A gorgeously art-directed, gross monster movie? SIGN ME UP.
Tinja is twelve, bullied, a competitive gymnast and the daughter of a self-centered, self-involved lifestyle blogger (only ever referred to as "Mother"). Mother has created a pink and floral, gold and crystal house for Tinja, her largely-ignored little brother Matias, and her definitely ignored husband to live in. Mother is also a former ice skater and has put all of her thwarted ambitions onto her daughter, who is good but not quite good enough.
When a small crow gets into the house, Tinja captures it to release it back into the wild but Mother snaps its neck and tells her to get rid of it. Later, Tinja finds the dying bird in the woods next to a nest with a single egg. After performing a mercy killing, she takes the egg home and nurtures it, pouring her loneliness, isolation, confusion and stress into it. When she cries on it, the eggshell absorbs her tears. The egg grows. And grows. And finally hatches out a gooey, grotesque, toothed bird-monster - a wonderful practical effect. Tinja is both repulsed and compelled to take care of the hatchling, naming it Alli after a lullaby. Alli is really her only friend. And the two share a psychic bond. As Alli starts to morph into a creature more like Tinja, she also tries to punish those she sees as harmful to her caretaker.
I thought this was quite good, a bit of a discourse on motherhood. It's a very pretty film - other than the gooey bird-monster, and that monster/body horror is well done. In Finnish with English subtitles.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment