New World Finn
(Summer 2003) by Harri Siitonen
Antero Alli, Finnish-American independent film-maker, has just produced his first full-length feature film with a Finnish theme: Under Shipwrecked Moon – A Fable of Love, Death & Hedgehogs. Antero and Sylvi Alli's Vertical Pool Productions in the two preceding years introduced two other quality feature films, Tragos and Hysteria. But as is unfortunate with low budget film-makers, they've never received the wide circulation they deserve.Shipwrecked Moon is basically the story of Finland-born Esko Hietanen, who had disappeared under mysterious circumstances fifteen years before, leaving the lives of his family in disarray. He took the assets of the import-export firm he ran jointly with his brother Oscar Hietanen with him. The impetus for his leaving was the feeling of grief and guilt over the death of his only son Timo, a sea captain who was shipwrecked in the Bering Sea. He leaves Timo's grieving wife Rakel in wonderment and and anger as well as his doting young grandson Jari, who becomes a rock musician and a practicing shaman. Fireworks flare up when Esko returns home to the San Francisco Bay Area, unannounced from his long exile, to make amends to his family but dies before he can communicate with them.
The film is basically about the power, love and strength of family, no matter how dysfunctional it is. There is also a tender, sensitive love story between Jari and his young wife Madeline. There is realism, but also a touch of the surreal, dream states and mysticism in Shipwrecked Moon. A powerful force throughout is the enigmatic Sisu (played by Alli's wife Sylvi), who permeates the story with a mystical, shamanistic presence. In another sense she is also the young Saami female shaman who Esko was enamored by as a young man, and who died young.
In many ways, there are suggestions of a Kalevalan spirit throughout Shipwrecked Moon. Animal spirits seen as ravens and hedgehogs dance around on a giant chessboard. The cinematography is excellent, changing continually along with the moods of the story. This is not a megabucks Hollywood production, but who needs Disney when such fabulous work can be done with simple, basic camerawork and editing. Arranged by the talented Sylvi Alli, there is a rich musical soundtrack throughout the film, featuring her own unique rendition of Sibelius' Finlandia on the piano.
filmthreat.com
(5/30/03)
review
by Phil Hall
Berkeley-based
indie filmmaker Antero Alli returns to his Finnish
roots with his new feature "Under a Shipwrecked
Moon," a handsomely produced but emotionally
challenging avant-garde venture which will certainly
provoke debate among Alli's fans.
"Under a Shipwrecked Moon" focuses
on the journey of an elderly Finnish man who is planning
to reunite with his family after leaving them 15 years
earlier when his son, a ship's captain, drowned in
a shipwreck in the Bering Sea. Unknown to the family
is the true parentage of the dead son: the woman he
believed to be as his mother was actually the midwife
who delivered him when his real mother, a mysterious
shaman (known in the Finnish tradition as a tietaja),
died in childbirth. The midwife later married the
child's father and pretended the child was hers. However,
the shaman's mystical powers seem to have been inherited
by the dead captain's son Jari, an American slacker
who is uncertain if the increasingly bizarre visions
he experiences while in a narcotized state are the
result of his drug intake or another force.
The elderly man, however, unexpectedly suffers a stroke
before his family reunion and is hospitalized. As
his family gathers at his bedside to bring their own
grievances for an airing, the comatose elder experiences
a series of flashbacks, hallucinations and heavily
symbolic imagery linked to the secret he's kept hidden
for so many years.
"Under a Shipwrecked Moon" strongly
calls to mind Alli's first feature film, the 1993
production of "The
Oracle", a Neruda-influenced
work which also had a dying elderly man slipping in
and out of dreamlike states where strange and surreal
visions embrace him. From an emotional level, it is
easier to connect with "The Oracle"
and its family of sincere yet flawed individuals long-separated
by frayed emotions and brought together too late by
a tragedy which fails to provide the cathartic state
required to put ill-will to rest.
Where "Under a Shipwrecked Moon" triumphs,
however, is in Alli's extraordinary dream and hallucination
sequences. Even by the high standards created by the
filmmaker in his stunning recent films including the
recent "Tragos" (2000) and "Hysteria" (2002), "Under a Shipwrecked Moon" takes the imagination into new and daring realms that
few artists could ever aspire to conceive. Mixing
the shaman traditions of Finland's folklore and heritage
with psychedelic washes of color and daring theatrical
experiments (two actors play the rivals of a raven
and a hedgehog in elaborate costumes of the animals),
and capping the visuals with a haunting score created
and performed by his real-life collaborator Sylvi
Alli (whose beautiful screen presence is used
to its fullest as the shaman), the film's landscape
of mists, monsters and mysteries is so artistically
overwhelming that it makes "The Cremaster
Cycle" look like "The Lizzie McGuire
Movie." If the film's human drama seems like
it needs a bit more oxygen, its visuals and technological
brilliance has enough imagination to fuel a half-dozen
movies.
In presenting "Under a Shipwrecked Moon,"
Alli cites influences ranging from Cocteau, Fellini
and Jodorowsky to David Lynch and Guy Maddin. This
is actually unnecessary, as Alli's style and approach
to film art is uniquely his own. Even if the human
drama of "Under a Shipwrecked Moon"
does not meet its fullest potential, the filmmaker's
genius for framing challenging and provocative features
cannot be denied.
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