Liikkumavara / Within Limits

Annika Grof: Liikkumavara (2009).

[Spelrum] / Within Limits / [literally: Leeway].
    FI (c) 2009 Illume Oy. P: Pertti Veijalainen.
    D+SC: Annika Grof. Planned by: Annika Grof, Janina Kokkonen. DP: Anssi Leino, Joni Ulmanen, Jarmo Kiuru, Hannu-Pekka Vitikainen. M, S: Ville Riippa. Musicians: Antti Hartikainen, Marko Portin, Tero Toivonen, Janne Pulkkinen. Digitization: Vappu Tuomisto, Joni Ulmanen, Outi Rehn. Online: Ville Lepistö, Mikko Löppönen, Henri Pulla – Talvi Oy. ED: Pauliina< Punkki.
    87 min.
    The best available format of this is Digital Cinema 2K. We screened a Betacam with English credits and headlines but without English subtitles, from PEK / Illume.
    Screened at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 17 Dec 2009.

AA: An excellent documentary film about the functioning of the Finnish parliament, focusing on the processing of the law on daycare and healthcare fees in April 2008. Plenary sessions, committee meetings and so on are surprisingly full of excitement. Matters of life and death especially for those who are ill. A revealing film for today's viewers. A valuable document of these times for the future. The title of the film (literally: Leeway) comes from a comment by Jörn Donner: "there is little leeway". Because everything has been settled in the governement's agenda already for the whole term of the parliament.

19 Dec 2009: Afterthoughts a couple of days later: this strong and focused documentary film keeps growing and seems more essential and relevant. The steel grip of the government agenda, the minimal leeway for anything else. 24 Dec 2009: The stony faces of the prime minister and the inner circle of the goverment. The Finnish Right markets itself as "the workers' party", as did certain famous right-wing parties in Europe in the 1930s. The Finnish right-wing politicians are completely different from those forces of the past. They are nice people, yet there is a steely hidden agenda of class struggle beneath their worker-friendly slogans. Something of the real faces behind the masks are revealed in Liikkumavara.

Christmas thoughts 24 Dec 2009: "Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him." – The words of Jesus in the Gospel According to Mark, 4:25.