Silmästä silmään / Eye to Eye

John Webster: Silmästä silmään / Eye to Eye. The director's masterpiece.

National Competition 2
Tampere International Film Festival (TFF)
Plevna 2, Tampere, 4 March 2020.
    Q&A after the screening with Saija Viitala, Arja Konttinen and Mika Suomalainen.

SILMÄSTÄ SILMÄÄN
EYE TO EYE

John Webster | Finland 2020 | Documentary | 87 min

TFF: "When we experience traumatic loss, we grieve. It is the essential process of healing. For the family members of murder victims this process is often postponed indefinitely. To unlock the trauma and begin the grieving, a method called restorative dialogue brings two parents – and the audience – eye to eye with the murderers."

"Koettuamme traumaattisen menetyksen me suremme. Se on keskeinen osa parantumisprosessia. Murhan uhrin omaisilla prosessi monesti lykkäytyy. Jotta trauman voi purkaa ja surutyö voi alkaa, restoratiiviseksi dialogiksi kutsuttu metodi tuo vanhemmat – ja katsojat – kohtaamaan murhaajat silmästä silmään." (TFF)

AA: An exceptional and unique documentary film, six years in the making, about restorative dialogue between families and murderers who have killed their children.

The film was shot in real circumstances at the Kylmäkoski Prison and the Vilppula Open Prison.

"In her heart the mother carries her child forever". The murder of one's child is an overwhelming experience, and it may be impossible to forgive, but one must do one's best to avoid hate becoming the all-encompassing emotion.

The film focuses on a few selected case studies. From the side of loss and negation it grows into a study of the strongest bonds in life, and a love everlasting.

It is also about the murderers coming to terms with what they have done, their lives also destroyed, their necessary reconstruction, sometimes a spiritual and religious awakening, the guilt and the torment never disappearing, haunting in nightmares every night.

John Webster has a strong visual and artistic vision in the film whose center is the stark and devastating confrontation. I am grateful for Sanna Liljander for emphasizing the exceptional artistic distinction of this movie, based on eye contact and various similes for the eye motif, even including the sunflower.

In the Q&A the film-makers emphasized the gross injustice that family members experience. The offenders are sentenced to pay heavy compensations, but because they get lifelong / very long prison sentences they cannot afford to pay, and families get nothing, instead they get stuck in prolonged litigations with the perpetrators whom they would prefer to avoid.