Monday, March 21, 2005

Sen edestään löytää

What Comes Around. FI 2005. PC: J.W. Documentaries. P+D+SC: John Webster. DP: Tuomo Hutri - video>35 mm. M: Sanna Salmenkallio. ED: Jukka Nykänen. Location: Salo. 75 min. Documentary. Ugly video look. Released by FS Film in Finnish without subtitles. Viewed at Forum 5, Helsinki, 21 March 2005. Webster followed the everyday life of the police in the city of Salo for three years, about 350 hours. In this film he follows the rookie lady cop Riikka for some months as she learns the job together with Paavo, about to retire. This "journey to the grey zone of everyday life" is at its most heart-wrenching in two stories of abandoned small children. There is a nightmare story about violence to a child right at the start, as shocking as splatter movies. And there is an equally desolate story towards the end about the small boy found naked in the snow. Policemen and -women have to face the utter negligence and indifference in society, and they have to be more social workers than they should. This film belongs to the cinéma-vérité and to the Frederick Wiseman school of documentary, where the film-maker gets incredibly close to aspects of reality usually inaccessible to documentary.

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