Neljä miljardia silmänräpäystä

Jaakko Pyhälä: Neljä miljardia silmänräpäystä (FI 1980).

Fyra miljarder ögonblick / [Four Billion Blinks of an Eye]. 

    FI 1980. First transmitted in 1981. PC: Yleisradio TV2 Teatteritoimitus. 

    P+D+ED: Jaakko Pyhälä. SC: Jukka Asikainen, Antti Hytti, Jaakko Pyhälä. CIN: Kalervo Katajavuori, Jaakko Pyhälä, Tahvo Hirvonen - 16 mm - colour - Eastmancolor 7247. 

    M: Antti Hytti. Performed by: Juhani Aaltonen (flute), Toni Edelmann (piano, organ), Esko Heikkinen (trumpet), Antti Hytti (bass, piano, vocals, synthetizator), Jarmo Korhonen (bassoon), Esa-Pekka Salonen, Tero Sarikoski (percussions), Jone Takamäki (tenor sax), Hasse Walli (guitar), Veli-Pekka Bister, Sirpa Juvonen, Vesa Raiskinen, Pirkko Vartiainen (string quartet). 

    With Kari Väänänen, Eila Halonen, Pirkko Koskenniemi, Tauno Lehtihalmes, Raimo O. Niemi, Raila Leppäkoski, Jaakko Talaskivi, Markku Toikka, Timo Torikka, Pekka Ojamaa, Ari Piispa, Jukka Asikainen, Arto af Hällström, Pertti Lumirae, Heikki-Tapio Partanen, Eero Tuomikoski, Kari Paukkunen, Petri Aalto, Pentti Asikainen, Pekka Bogel, Matti Kuortti, Kyösti Mankamo, Markku Laakso, Jami Laine, Helena Luukkonen, Lotta Myllymäki, Ari Rauhanen, Sari Rauhanen, Lyyli Kauhanen, Ida Kurki, Heidi Pirkola, Aune Toivonen, Ritva Torvinen, Mari Ahola, Minna Ahola, Dina Enberg, Raimo Holmgren, Kira Kaipiainen, Timo Laakkonen, Petri Kaipiainen, Kalle Kultala. 

    74 min

    Viewed at Suomen elokuva-arkisto, Orion, Helsinki, 15 October, 2008.

A bad, faded 16 mm print of 72 min.

An essay film about photography. A film of Godardian inspiration, totally original. Starts with a quotation from Kafka. - Chinese delegation in Finland. - Photography is an intrusion to privacy. - A funeral: each journey to eternity is immortalized. In each funeral there is always somebody whom nobody knows.

Kari Väänänen as a mumbling, confused, slacker kind of guy in his debut film, even spaced out. His task: to organize the archives of a photographer who has committed suicide. - The Laterna Magica. - Early cinema (Lumière: Debarquement du Congrès des photographes à Lyon), at overspeed. - Väänänen's girlfriend in beautiful nude scenes. - A parodic tv panel. Väänänen's day work as an assistent at a tv studio. Documentary value in the tv segment. - I could not confess to anyone that I did not understand anything. I dreamt that I was late and arrived at an empty stadium. - The National Museum: it is not allowed to have a conversation with the museum objects. - The piano has already been taken. - The cry of the crow. - Gavrilo Princip and the role of the photographer in WWI. The clown of history. Four billion blinks of an eye. The fleeting moment as the image of eternity. Behave or I'll photograph you out of history. A break of the information flow for half a year. The books of the Alexandria library were used to heat baths. - A bear looks clumsy but it's fast and strong. - The death of a tv journalist. A rainy night. The images of the magic lantern of an angel and grief at the grave. - Interesting montages. Interesting music, from modern concert music to jazz.

Lively discussion about the film after the show, this film would deserve to be made better available.

Jon

Jon / Jon. FI (c) 1983 Tambur Film. P+D+ED: Jaakko Pyhälä. SC: JP, Heikki Vuento. DP: Pertti Mutanen - colour: Agfa-Gevaert - Technovision 1:2,35. M: Antti Hytti. Sound: Paul Jyrälä, Matti Kuortti - Dolby Stereo. Starring Kari Väänänen (Jon), Vesa-Matti Loiri (Öljys-Heikki), Pia-Beate Tellefsen (Gunilla), Anne-Beate Odland (Susanne de Wrees, film producer-director), Vesa Vierikko (Dietmar), Helena Lindgren (waitress). 127 min. In Finnish, partly in Swedish and Norwegian with Finnish subtitles. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 14 September 2008. - In the presence of Matti Kuortti, interviewed by Markku Varjola. MK told about the extreme conditions of film-making in the Far North in the autumn storms, with hail raining upwards the hill, the ferry line precarious to the island of Vuoreija / Vardö. The Technovision equipment was heavy, the scope format was the sound engineer's dream, this was the second or third film in Finland in Dolby Stereo. Loiri stayed in costume also outside the shooting, and he surprised the local yuppies with his skill at pool. They never got to enter the game. - The print did justice to one of the best examples of cinematography in Finnish cinema, with the haunting light of Lapland, shot by the Barents Sea, Nordkap. There is a pleasant warmth in the sunlight. - I saw this film for the first time. Visually it's striking and original, it has a true vision, and there are several strong and memorable visual ideas to the sequences. The bar, the art exhibition, the escape in the rain, the Hakaniemi square, the military exercises in the fog, Ivalo, the Barents Sea, the Island of Vardö. - The brilliant images keep coming, but the film is going nowhere. - This is one of the Finnish films (the first?) where a large vintage white Cadillac convertible serves as the escape vehicle. - Conceived first as an "account of the end of the world", and subsequently as "a young man's odyssey" it displays strong visual talent but the basic feeling is confused. - Kari Väänänen as the chaotic Jon has a tough anti-hero attitude. No nice guy, he beats women, is rude, his speech is ugly. He has the makings of a gangster. Yet he protects a child from her mother, and in women he attracts sympathy that he does not deserve. - The main content of the protagonists' lives is wandering, drinking and fighting. There are gunfights, and finally the gangsters on Dietmar's trail find him. Jon survives. - The women are attractive, their parts underwritten. - Although set in the cod fishing milieu, there is little sense of fishing and the industry linked with it.

Kastematojen aika

The Age of the Worms / Daggmaskarnas tid. FI (c) 1985 YLE TV1 Lasten ja nuorten ohjelmien toimitus. D+SC: Matti Ijäs. DP: Jouko Paavonen. M: Antti Hytti. With pieces by Tom Waits, Keith Jarrett, and Jan Garbarek. LOC: Helsinki. Starring Kimmo Lempinen (Jontti), Vieno Saaristo (Jontti's mother), Oiva Lohtander (Jontti's father), Erkki Pajala (the angler), Samuli Edelmann (Höödi the bike boy). 35 min. 16mm sepmag production presented in digibeta, alas. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 14 September 2008. -An original coming-of-age story of a teenage boy. Spying on undressing girls. Violently clashing with parents. Making friends with an old tramp called the Angler in the fishing harbor. They steal money from fishing boats? and also collect worms for fishing; after a blind man's bluff on the jetty the old man splashes into the sea, and Jontti goes to buy dry clothes for him. But he gets a lift from an older teenager boy (Samuli Edelmann in one of his first parts) who takes him to the special part of the beach where boys and girls make out. Threatened by bikes, the old angler falls on a bridge looking lifeless. - Full of interesting observations, with a strong sense of the confusion in teenager's mind. - Interesting score by Antti Hytti. - Boldly nocturnal cinematography by Jouko Paavonen. Jontti is not a hero, he has mean and vicious traits. Nor is the angler a nice old fellow.