Category Archives: Social Satire

Wish you were here: Sightseers **

September 16, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 15, 2013)

There is nothing inherently amusing about mass/serial/spree killers; especially in these troubled times when they have become a daily occurrence. Nonetheless, filmmakers have been playing the subject for laughs for many a moon, going at least as far back as Frank Capra’s 1944 film adaptation of Joseph Kesselring’s early 40’s Broadway hit, Arsenic and Old Lace, Charlie Chaplin’s 1947 black comedy Monsieur Verdoux or the 1949 Ealing Studios classic, Kind Hearts and Coronets. Of course, those films are almost “kind and gentle” next to contemporary genre fare like Bob Goldthwait’s God Bless America or the insanely popular Showtime series Dexter.

Sightseers, a dark comedy from the UK directed by Ben Wheatley, falls somewhere in between. A cross between The Trip and Natural Born Killers, it’s about a slovenly gent named Chris (Steve Oram) who drops in on his agoraphobic girlfriend Tina (Alice Lowe, who co-wrote with Oram and Amy Jump) to spirit her away from her over-protective Mum for a road trip to the north of England. Chris is eager to open Tina’s eyes to wonders like the Ribblehead Viaduct and the Keswick Pencil Museum, camping out in their caravan along the way.

Besides, this will give the fledgling couple a chance to get to know each other (as Chris assures the wary Tina.) The journey begins well enough, until Chris witnesses a man littering on a bus. Chris gets unusually bent out of shape when the man dismisses his admonishment with a one finger salute. Tina is concerned, but Chris’ anger passes. She’s relieved. That is, until Chris “accidentally” runs over the litterbug with the caravan when he happens to spot him later that day. Oh, dear! Just when you think you’re really getting to know somebody.

So do the laughs pile up in tandem with the escalating body count? I don’t know; maybe I’m already witnessing more than enough mayhem on the nightly news, but I couldn’t squeeze guffaws out of seeing someone run over by an RV, or having their skull pulverized into ground chuck by repeated blows with a blunt object. Call me madcap. Despite being infused with wry British wit and oddly endearing performances from Oram and Lowe, Wheatley’s film may have made me chuckle a bit, but it didn’t exactly slay me.

Culture Clash, Politics, Road Movie, Social Satire

No future: Top 5 Thatcher era films

September 15, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 13, 2013)

Digby did a great post earlier this week with an interesting cultural angle regarding the passing of former British PM Margaret Thatcher. She recalls how the Thatcher era (1979-1990) “was a fertile period in British music”, that blossomed in tandem with the “very active political opposition to Thatcherism”. The socio-political ennui that fueled those punk anthems Dibgy cites also informed the work of some young British filmmakers. So as a sort of companion piece to Digby’s post, I’ve selected five films that share the ethos:

High Hopes – “Guess what its name is?” asks Shirley (Ruth Sheen), whilst pointing at a potted cactus plant. When their house guest shrugs, her husband Cyril (Philip Davis) chimes in, “Thatcher! Because it’s a pain in the ass; prongs you every time you walk past it.” Cyril (an old-school Marxist who works as a motorbike messenger) and the earth-motherly Shirley are at the center of Mike Leigh’s wonderful 1988 character study.

In his usual leisurely yet compelling fashion, Leigh pulls you right into the world of this sweet, unpretentious working-class couple and the people in their orbit. There’s Cyril’s elderly mum (Edna Dore), with whom he dutifully stays in touch (despite the fact that she voted Tory in the last election, to his chagrin). Cyril’s shrill, self-centered sister Valerie (Heather Tobias) is a piece of work; while she also stays in touch with Mum, she sees it as a bothersome chore. Her exasperated husband (Martin Burke) is starting to view his marriage as a bothersome chore. And then there is an obnoxious yuppie couple (Lesley Manville and David Bamber) that you will love to hate.

Many of Leigh’s recurring themes are present; particularly class warfare and family dynamics (the thread about Cyril’s aging mother reminds me of Ozu’s Tokyo Story). And like most of Leigh’s films, it’s insightful, funny, poignant and ultimately life-affirming.

The Ploughman’s Lunch – In a 2009 article in The Guardian, a number of UK writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers and arts critics weighed in regarding Thatcherism’s effect on each of their respective fields. This was theater and film director Richard Eyre’s take:

Thatcher’s relentless emphasis on money and management and marketing illuminated the value of things that couldn’t be quantified, and her moronic mantra “there’s no such thing as society” gave the humanitarian and moral a conspicuous importance. So, although I didn’t think it at the time, it’s possible that Thatcher gave the arts a shot in the arm.

And indeed, Eyre’s 1983 film is probably the most politically subversive of my five selections. Bolstered by Ian McEwan’s incisive screenplay, the story is set on the eve of the Falklands War. Jonathan Pryce tackles the unenviable task of making us care about an inherently smarmy protagonist with considerable aplomb.

Pryce plays a cynical Oxford-educated Radio London news writer who falls madly in love with a TV journalist (Charlie Dore). She reciprocates in a platonic fashion. Frustrated, Pryce begs a pal (Tim Curry) who also happens to be Dore’s long-time co-worker for ideas. Curry suggests that Pryce, who has been commissioned to write a book on the Suez Crisis, could score points by ingratiating himself with Dore’s mother (Rosemary Harris), an historian who once wrote a commemorative article on that very subject. Pryce’s love life takes a few unexpected turns.

While it may sound more like a soap opera than a political statement, McEwan’s script cleverly draws parallels between the self-serving sexual machinations of the characters and what he may have felt Thatcher was (figuratively) “doing” to Britain at the time.

It’s interesting to note that the denouement, which features the three journalists covering the 1982 Conservative Party Conference, was surreptitiously filmed at the actual event (you’ll see snippets of Thatcher’s address) as the actors nonchalantly mingled with the crowd (begging comparison to Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool).

Radio On – You know how you develop an inexplicable emotional attachment to certain films? This no-budget 1979 offering from writer-director Christopher Petit, shot in stark B&W is one such film for me. That said, I should warn you that it is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, as it contains one of those episodic narratives that may cause drowsiness for some after about 15 minutes. Yet, I am compelled to revisit this one annually. Go figure.

A dour London DJ (David Beames), whose estranged brother has committed suicide, heads to Bristol to get his sibling’s affairs in order and attempt to glean what drove him to such despair (while quite reminiscent of the setup for Get Carter, this is not a crime thriller…far from it). He has encounters with various characters, including a friendly German woman, an unbalanced British Army vet who served in Northern Ireland, and a rural gas-station attendant (a cameo by Sting) who kills time singing Eddie Cochran songs.

As the protagonist journeys across an England full of bleak yet perversely beautiful industrial landscapes in his boxy sedan, accompanied by a moody electronic score (mostly Kraftwerk and David Bowie) the film becomes hypnotic. A textbook example of how the cinema can capture and preserve the zeitgeist of an ephemeral moment (e.g. England on the cusp of the Thatcher era) like no other art form.

Sammie and Rosie Get Laid –What I adore most about this 1987 dramedy from director Stephen Frears (My Beautiful Launderette, Prick up Your Ears, Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters, High Fidelity) is that it is everything wingnuts dread: Pro-feminist, gay-positive, anti-fascist, pro-multiculturalism, anti-colonialist and Marxist-friendly (they don’t make ‘em like this anymore).

At first glance, Sammy (Ayub Khan-Din) and Rosie (Frances Barber) are just your average middle-class London couple. However, their lifestyle is unconventional. They have taken a libertine approach to their marriage; giving each other an unlimited pass to take lovers on the side (the in-joke here is that Sammy and Rosie seemingly “get laid” with everyone but each other).

In the meantime, the couple’s neighborhood is turning into a war zone; ethnic and political unrest has led to nightly riots (this is unmistakably Thatcher’s England; Frears bookends his film with ironic excerpts from her speeches). When Sammy’s estranged father (Shashi Kapoor), a former Indian government official haunted by ghosts from his political past, returns to London after a long absence, everything goes topsy-turvy for the couple.

Fine performances abound in a cast that includes Claire Bloom and Fine Young Cannibals lead singer Roland Gift, buoyed by Frears’ direction and Hanif Kureishi’s literate script.

This is England – This film from director Shane Meadows (Once Upon a Time in the Midlands) was released in 2007, but is set during the Thatcher era, circa 1983. A hard-hitting, naturalistic “social drama” reminiscent of the work of Ken Loach and British “angry young man” films of the early 60s, it centers on a glum, alienated 12 year-old named Shaun (first-time film actor Thomas Turgoose, in an extraordinary performance).

Shaun is a real handful to his loving but exasperated mother (Jo Hartley), a struggling working-class Falklands War widow. Happenstance leads Shaun into the midst of a skinhead gang, after the empathetic and good-natured gang leader (Joe Gilgun) takes him under his wing and offers him unconditional entrée. The idyll is shattered when the gang’s original leader ‘Combo’ (Stephen Graham) is released from prison. His jailhouse conversion to racist National Front ideals splits the gang into factions. Shaun decides to side with the thuggish and manipulative Combo, and it’s downhill from there.

As a cautionary tale, the film demonstrates how easily the disenfranchised can be recruited and indoctrinated into the politics of hate. As a history lesson, it’s a fascinating glimpse at a not-so-long ago era of complex sociopolitical upheaval in Great Britain. As a drama, it has believable and astounding performances, particularly from the aforementioned Turgoose and Graham, who positively owns the screen with his charismatic intensity. Not to be missed.

Romantic Comedy, Social Satire

The man show: Don Jon **1/2

September 6, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 28, 2013)

In her review of the 1966 film Alfie, in which Michael Caine stars as a self-styled “Cockney Don Juan” who confides his chauvinistic tenets on relationships to the viewer, the late Pauline Kael wrote that screenwriter Bill Naughton’s dialogue “…keeps the viewer absorbed in Alfie, the cold-hearted sexual hotshot, and his self-exculpatory line of reasoning.” If you fast forward the time line from swinging 60s London to the present-day Jersey shore, trading a double-breasted suit for a wife-beater, this could double as a description of the eponymous character in Don Jon, who explains his philosophy of life thusly:

There’s only a few things I really care about in life. My body. My pad. My ride. My family. My church. My boys. My girls. My porn.

“Self exculpatory” is an understatement. Especially once Jon (played with “fuhgettaboutit” swagger by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who also wrote and directed) really gets cooking on a breathless jag describing his love affair with internet porn. Not that he has any trouble with the ladies, mind you (his nickname stems from a seemingly effortless ability to bed a different woman every weekend, much to the wonderment and admiration of his “boys”).

This may be moot to interject, but our hero may be exhibiting classic signs of sex addiction. I’m not judging; I’m just sayin’.

Anyway, back to the porn. The thing is, as much as he does love the ladies, it seems that sex with a partner somehow never measures up to the online experience; he can’t “lose himself” in the moment in quite the same way. Again, I risk belaboring the obvious: Is it possible that the porn addiction has given ‘Don’ J some unrealistic expectations about actual adult relationships?

Enter Barbara (Scarlett Johansson) a knockout beauty who responds to Jon’s time-tested moves…but only up to a point. She is nobody’s one-night stand; she wants to be wooed. At first, Jon responds like the proverbial deer in the headlights. This could require radical concessions, like maybe (gulp) meeting for lunch or (worse case) coffee first. What is this strange new feeling? Could it be this “love” of which people speak?

Just as Jon begins to sense the paradigm shift, he meets another (more mature) woman (Julianne Moore, acting circles around everyone else) who seems to be genuinely interested in him as a person (he has no idea what to make of that). Jon’s amusing Sunday confessions begin to expand beyond his typical “Bless me, Father, I masturbated 34 times this week.”

Gordon-Levitt has poured admirable effort into his directing debut, but in his over-eagerness to prove himself, he may have put a few too many eggs in the basket. On the plus side, he’s assembled a great cast. In fact, some of the supporting players threaten to walk away with the film; particularly a surprisingly effective Tony Danza (yes, that Tony Danza) as Jon’s father, telegraphing (with expert comic timing) how the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree.

Brie Larson (as Jon’s sullen sister) steals every scene she’s in-no small feat considering that she spends most of the film staring at her cell phone, until deciding to impart a few words of wisdom toward the end (it’s that whole Silent Bob thing). On the down side, there are jarring tonal shifts that leave you scratching your head as to what Gordon-Levitt is trying to say at times with this (sort of) morality play/social satire hybrid. Still, I was entertained. I laughed, and almost cried (just don’t tell my boys).

Dramedy, Family Issues, Social Satire

Angst in my pants: Dark Horse ***1/2

August 25, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 4, 2012)

Lowered expectations: Blair and Gelber in Dark Horse

“Why does one decide to marry? Social pressure? Boredom? Loneliness? Sexual appeasement? Love? I won’t put any of these reasons down…Last year, I married a musician who wanted to get married in order to stop masturbating…He is now separated, still masturbating, but he is at peace with himself because he tried society’s way.”

-the wedding minister in Little Murders (screenplay by Jules Feiffer)

Todd Solondz loves to make his audience uncomfortable. I can’t imagine anyone sitting through a film like Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness or Storytelling without squirming in their seat, grinding their teeth or occasionally putting their hand over their eyes and daring themselves to peek. And what is it that the viewer is afraid of looking at? It’s not what you may think. It’s not an axe murderer, lurking in the closet. It’s not someone being doused with gasoline and set ablaze or having their fingernails pulled out one by one. No, it’s much, much worse than that. Because there is nothing that human beings fear coming face to face with more than…human nature. Or the Truth. Because the Truth is…life is nothing like the movies. Paradoxically, Solondz’s films are a lot like life.

Refreshingly, his latest film, Dark Horse, does not induce the usual amount of squirming and grinding and daring yourself to peek. Not that it lacks the dark comedic flourishes that have become the director’s stock in trade, but it actually toys with sweetness and light. Sort of a twisty, postmodern art house re-imagining of Marty, the story centers on Abe (Jordan Gelber), a portly thirty-something nudnik who lives with his parents (Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow, worth the price of admission right there).

Abe works for his father, collects action figures and doesn’t have any aspirations. You sense in Abe an undercurrent of angst and desperation, likely exacerbated by constant doting from his over-protective mother and verbal drubbing from his hyper-critical father. Abe also harbors a seething resentment toward his brother (Justin Bartha), a successful doctor.

Yes, Abe is a man-child…in the most petulant, cringe-worthy sense (which makes him a typical Solondz protagonist). Yet, he sees himself as a catch; a “dark horse” waiting to be discovered by some lucky lady (perhaps one who finds a delusional thirty-something man who works for his dad, collects toys and lives with his parents to be devastatingly attractive). Still, Abe registers genuine surprise when Miranda (Selma Blair), a lovely thirty-something woman he meets at a wedding, gives him her phone number after a few minutes of meaningless chatter.

Of course, there is a catch. She’s completely nuts (and lives with her parents, too). She’s so profoundly depressed (and heavily medicated) that she can barely hold a conversation. However, she is startled from her psychotropic haze when Abe proposes marriage during their first date (“You’re not being ironic…like performance art or something?” she asks). Abe assures her that he is being dead serious.

From this point onward, the viewer begins to wonder if maybe it is the filmmaker who is being ironic…like performance art or something? Without giving too much away, we become uncertain whether some events are occurring in the protagonist’s reality, or in his imagination. Gelber (who reminds me of the late Jack Weston) imbues his troubled character with enough vulnerability to invite empathy, yet spikes the punch with a fair amount of edgy unpredictability (lest we get too comfortable).

Blair slyly pinpoints the sweet spot between funny and sad with her deadpan performance, and Walken’s magnificently gauche toupee deserves its own star billing. Solondz has fashioned something akin to a modern Jewish morality tale, in the tradition of Jules Feiffer, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and Mordecai Richler (Could Solondz be their heir apparent?). He’s also delivered a thought-provoking treatise on life, love and death. While he doesn’t let anyone completely off the hook (including the audience), he slips enough humanity and compassion into the mix to make the Truth a little bit easier to swallow this time around.

Culture Clash, Dramedy, Social Satire, Up the Workers

The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie: The Women on the 6th Floor ***

July 30, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 3, 2011)

If there is one thing I’ve learned from the movies (at least ever since Alan Bates said “Zorba, teach me to dance” to Anthony Quinn) it’s that the Noble Peasant has much wisdom to impart to the Uptight Bourgeoisie (particularly when it comes to learning the sirtaki).

The latest example is a French import (set in 1960s Paris) called The Women on the 6^th Floor, an “upstairs/downstairs” social satire from director Phillipe Le Guay. In this case, the servile class occupies the uppermost floor of an apartment building owned by a staid middle-aged stockbroker named Jean-Louis (Fabrice Luchini). Jean-Louis, who inherited the property from his father, lives in a swanky downstairs apartment with his neurotic wife (Sandrine Kiberlane) and two spoiled teenage sons. After the family’s cranky long-time maid quits in a huff, he hires lovely Maria (Natalia Verbeke), who takes a room on the 6^th floor, where she joins a small group of fellow female Spanish émigrés.

It’s obvious from the get-go that Jean-Louis is quite charmed by the young Maria, who invites him upstairs to meet her friends. Although he has lived in the building since infancy, Jean-Louis has somehow never managed to venture up the 6^th floor. At least, that’s the only possible explanation for his “shock” when he discovers the relatively dismal living conditions endured by the nonetheless high-spirited coterie of Spanish maids who live in the servant’s quarters.

Well, mostly high-spirited. One maid gives him a cooler reception. “Oh, don’t mind her,” another one of the women cheerfully offers, “she’s a Communist” (with a heart of gold). At any rate, Jean-Louis is seized by a sudden urge to make amends for the disparity (yes, that fast) and, spurred by his newly found sense of altruism, begins making some capital improvements to the 6^th floor. Now that his armor has been breached, it’s only a matter of time until he’s hanging out with the gals, laughing, breaking out the good vintage from his cellar, and discovering the savory delights of authentic homemade paella. You know-he’s leaning how to dance the sirtaki.

With a trope this hoary, you’d better have something substantive to back it up with, and luckily, Le Guay offers assured direction and well-coaxed performances from his entire cast. Luchini (a 40-year film veteran) brings just the right amount of warmth, poignancy and self-effacing humor to his portrayal of a man coming to grips with an unexpected winter passion. The film’s secret weapon is Verbeke, a voluptuous Argentine who brings an earthy sensuality to the screen that reminds me of the young Sonia Braga. While this film doesn’t break any ground, it may teach you a few new steps.

Religion, Road Movie, Social Satire

Sinners and saints: Salvation Boulevard *1/2

July 30, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 30, 2011)

Salvation Boulevard is precisely the type of black comedy/social satire/noirish morality play that the Coen brothers excel at. Unfortunately, the Coen brothers didn’t direct it. Or write it. However, I will hand it to writer-director George Ratliff-it does take a special kind of skill to so effectively squander the potential of a cast that includes Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Connelly, Marisa Tomei and Ed Harris.

Kinnear plays ex-Deadhead Carl, a member of a megachurch who has traded the tie-dye and Thai Stick of hippiedom for the sackcloth and ashes of born-again Christendom. Well, maybe not completely (is there really such a thing as an “ex”-Deadhead?), because you get the impression that his wife Gwen (Connelly) is the one who really wears the piety in the family.

Gwen is slavishly devoted to the edicts of the church’s charismatic leader, Pastor Dan (Brosnan), a slick hustler with ambitions to build his own “city on a hill” (more as a monument to himself, than to the Lord-one suspects). Their teen daughter (Isabelle Fuhrman) is apprehensive about Mom’s push to psych her up for taking her “vows” at an upcoming “purity ball”. Meanwhile, malleable Carl just goes with the flow.

One evening, following a televised debate at the megachurch between Pastor Dan and guest speaker Dr. Blaylock (Harris), a famous atheist writer, Carl ends up driving the pastor to the doctor’s home for a nightcap. In the midst of a conversation about the possibilities of the two men co-authoring a book, Pastor Dan accidentally shoots Dr. Blaylock in the head while handling an antique pistol (oops!), leaving the writer alive, but in a coma.

Carl, of course, wants to do the right thing and call the police immediately; but the silver-tongued pastor persuades him to hold off until they get back to the church. Yes, Carl is being set up to be the fall guy-and by the time he realizes it, Pastor Dan, with no shortage of worshipful toadies at his disposal, has the upper hand. No one believes Carl’s side of the story, even Gwen (she chalks it up as a “hallucination”-maybe a relapse to his druggie DFH past). He finally finds a sympathetic ear in a female church security guard (Tomei) who bonds with him as a fellow Deadhead.

Once the pair (seemingly the only two sane and likable characters in the story) hit the highway in a VW van, with the evil heavies from the church in hot pursuit, you would think that you are now in for a darkly amusing “road movie”, chockablock with wacky vignettes fueled by the colorful characters encountered along the way. You would think.

But it is at this point in the film that Ratliff (and his co-writer Douglas Stone) make a fatal mistake. Well, two. First, Tomei’s character gets dropped like a rock-which is too bad, because the only time the film really came alive for me was when she was onscreen. Secondly, from the moment Carl is abruptly kidnapped by a Mexican drug lord (don’t ask) the whole narrative gets hijacked as well, grinding the entire film to a thudding halt.

I’m not sure what happened here; but most of the cast (with the exception of Tomei) sleepwalk through the film (and these are usually reliable actors). Bad direction? Not enough direction? Weak script? All of the above? Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint.

Whatever the root cause, the end product is forced and flat; it’s like a lame network sitcom making a futile attempt to be as hip as, say, Weeds. I had also greatly anticipated the re-pairing of Brosnan and Kinnear, who made a perfect tag team in the 2005 black comedy, The Matador. But alas, it was not to be. Another unpardonable sin-the megachurch phenom is so ripe for a satirical takedown, and that opportunity is blown as well. So I am afraid I have to say: “Praise the Lord and pass the multiplex” on this one.

Cult Movie, Horror, Social Satire

Naughty and not so nice: Rare Exports ***1/2

July 3, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 25, 2010)

It’s official. I now have a new favorite Christmas movie. John Carpenter’s The Thing meets Miracle on 34^th Street in Finnish writer-director Jalmari Helander’s Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, a wickedly clever Yule story that spices up the usual holiday family movie recipe by folding in generous dollops of sci-fi, horror, and Norse legend.

The twist here is that our protagonist, a young boy named Pietari (Onni Tommila) not only believes that Santa Claus is, in fact, real, but that he is buried just beyond the back 40 of his dad’s reindeer ranch, where American archeologists are excavating a mysterious promontory. After bizarre and troubling events begin to plague Pietari’s sleepy little hamlet, it looks that Santa may have just been “resting”. And if this is the mythical Santa Pietari suspects, then he is more Balrog than eggnog…and is best left undisturbed.

The director also works a sly anti-consumerist polemic into his narrative. Pietra’s dad (Jorma Tommila) and his fellow reindeer hunters-who are more chagrinned that the saturnine Santa is threatening their livelihood by slaughtering all the reindeer than by the fact that he is also methodically kidnapping the village children and spiriting them away to an undisclosed location, manage to capture him, and then demand a “ransom” from the corporate weasel who, for his own nefarious reasons, is funding the dig.

In the meantime, a legion of Santa’s nasty little “helpers” are running amuck and wreaking havoc. Pietari, the only one keeping a cool head, just wants to enjoy Christmas with dad-even if he has to transform into a midget version of Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness to rescue the children (and save the farm, in a manner of speaking).

There’s nothing “cute” about this film, yet it’s by no means mean-spirited, either. It is an off-beat, darkly funny, and wholly original treat for moviegoers hungry for a fresh alternative to the 999^th lifetime viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Story. Speaking as someone who lived for many years within a day’s drive of the Arctic Circle, the film also perfectly captures the stark beauty of midwinter in the far Northern Hemisphere; especially that unique dichotomy of soothing tranquility and alien desolation that it can bring to one’s soul. And for god’s sake-let Santa rest in peace.