Saturday, April 07, 2012

Risto Räppääjä ja viileä Venla / Ricky Rapper and Cool Wendy

Risto Rappare och koola Venla. FI © 2012 Kinotar. P: Lasse Saarinen, Risto Salomaa. D: Mari Rantasila. SC: Sinikka Nopola, Tiina Nopola - based on the characters in their popular book series. DP: Timo Heinänen. Digital post-production: Generator Post. M: Iiro Rantala. ED: Tuuli Kuittinen. C: Lauri Kajo (Risto Räppääjä), Venni Uotila (Nelli Nuudelipää), Olivia Ainali (Viileä Venla Horsmaniemi), Ulla Tapaninen (Pakastaja-Elvi), Juha Muje (Uolevi Horsmaniemi), Martti Suosalo (Lennart Lindberg), Annu Valonen (Rauha Räppääjä). 74 min. Distributed by Nordisk Film Oy with Swedish subtitles by Saliven Gustavsson. 2K DCP viewed at Tennispalatsi, 8 April 2012.

Family entertainment, a musical comedy based on an original story, not on a pre-existing novel in the popular Risto Räppääjä series. Risto and Nelli spend summer days on a holiday camp on an island where they meet Cool Venla who has advanced ideas about clothes and attitudes. But Venla can't swim. Meanwhile Venla's father starts to see the formidable Pakastaja-Elvi (Elvi the Freeze).

The most popular Finnish film of the year keeps finding its audience. I find these movies hard to swallow because of their blatantly garish colours, including complementary colours such as red and green, exaggerated to the point that the images look colourized or stencil-coloured. The farce approach is stylized in the extreme with pronounced sound effects and sped-up motion. The grown-ups are caricatured.

The visual quality is intentionally antirealistic.

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