Mummola / Family Time

Tia Kouvo: Mummola / Family Time (FI 2023). Facing: Ria Kataja (Susanna), Leena Uotila (Ella), Tom Wentzel (Lasse), Elina Knihtilä (Helena), Jarkko Pajunen (Risto). With their backs on us, the children are watching the grown-ups: Sakari Topi (Simo), Elli Paajanen (Hilla), Toomas Talikka (Kassu). Please click on the poster to enlarge it.

Finnish Christmas movies are an annually growing phenomenon. There are fairy-tales, usually set in Lapland and featuring reindeer, Santa Claus, the Snow Queen and Moomins. There is the definitive Finnish anti-Christmas movie: Joulubileet by Jari Halonen. A current of its own is the Christmas celebration film among family or friends including Joulumaa, Täydellinen joulu, Kulkuset kulkuset and now Mummola, the debut feature film by Tia Kouvo. whose eponymous short film Mummola (2018) I saw five years ago at Tampere Film Festival.

The annual Christmas get-together takes place at the grandmother's place (mummola). The grandmother is Ella (Leena Uotila) and the grandfather is Lasse (Tom Wentzel). Their grown-up daughters are there: Susanna (Ria Kataja) and Helena (Elina Knihtilä). Susanna arrives with her husband Risto (Jarkko Pajunen) and their two little children Simo and Hilla (Sakari Topi, Elli Paajanen). Helena is accompanied by her son Kassu (Toomas Talikka).

The situation is intimate in the extreme, but it is tempered by the visual approach, a variation of the early cinema revival trend, familiar from Roy Andersson. As a rule, there is a long take and a long shot and no camera movement. Not quite plan-séquence, but not far either. Certain important scenes are shot with faces left outside the camera field or even with no human visibility. Only voices, or silences, convey what is going on. It is a distanciation effect to field off melodrama, but the camera neutrality and objectivity - even indifference -  turn to serve a genuine emotional charge.

The viewpoint of the children is all-important. I bambini ci guardano. The grown-ups are accustomed to the "same procedure as every year". The children are the future, the embodiment of the Christmas spirit, the celebration is essentially for them, and little Hilla (Elli Paajanen) speaks up that what is happening is wrong and spoils the party for all. The emperor's new clothes. Significantly, the film ends with Hilla staying for a long while in grandfather's tool shed, his man cave.

The movie is divided into two parts. Part I is Christmas, Part II is after. In the second part we follow Susanna's promotion to a position of higher responsibility at a big Finnish retailing cooperative. We learn more about Helena's situation with her passive adult son Kassu who is dexterous with computers but lacks initiative. In the beginning of Part I, asked whether Kassu has a girlfriend, he counters: "it might as well be a boyfriend".

The anthology piece of the movie is Susanna's inviting Risto to the garage for a child-free moment in the family car, speaking out about the state of the union. Nothing is wrong externally, but intimacy is missing, a topic painfully hard to discuss. The balance of gravity and comedy is perfect in the dialogue, performances and direction of this sequence.

Speaking about topics hard to discuss, the veritable elephant in the room is the alcoholism of the grandfather Lasse. It is so extreme that he passes out and has to be carried to his bed in the middle of the party. As he wakes up in the morning, he instantly starts to drink again, and when Ella warns that he could die, Lasse states "if only".

In the second part we see Lasse sober for the only time. He is expecting a guest, Seppo (Matti Ristinen). They have been sailors together. Lasse is not only sober, he is nice and radiant and the consummate host.

Only after the screening it dawned on me what it was about. I have heard that all viewers have not grasped it even afterwards, a situation comparable with Ihmiset suviyössä / People in the Summer Night which is possible to see without realizing what is troubling Nokia.

There are many causes for alcoholism, and repressed homosexuality is one of them. Lasse is sincere when he declares that he truly loves Ella. But he has been a terrible husband, father and grandfather, ruined the childhood of his daughters and given them an awful role model as father and husband. In reaction, the daughters have grown self-sufficient in a way that may not leave airspace for husbands.

In Finnish fiction and cinema I detect a powerful current of matriarchy. I considered using the word "undercurrent", but the current is not really hidden at all. It is just taken for granted. It is fascinating that it is never discussed. Mummola is a new major showcase of matriarchy in Finnish fiction.

Excellent work by Tia Kouvo, cast and crew. The audience was quite obviously engaged and gratified.