09/02/2008

Love, betrayal and its ravages are at the centre of Petri Kotwica’s Black Ice [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kai Nordberg
interview: Petri Kotwica
film profile], which screened in official competition last Friday at the Berlinale.

Served by the excellent acting trio of Martti Suolalo, Ria Kataja and in particular Outi Mäenpää – who won Finland’s supreme Jussi Film Award last week for her riveting performance – the gripping melodrama takes the audience on an unpredictable, sometimes improbable, journey.

Received to mixed reviews by the international press in Berlin, the film nevertheless had audiences at the Urania cinema glued to their seats on Saturday, laughing where they were supposed to, while the closing credits were drowned out by spontaneous applause.

In Black Ice, Leo (Suolalo), a successful architect who also teaches at the university, is married to the beautiful Saara (Mäenpää), a 40 year-old gynaecologist. When Saara discovers that her husband is having an affair with his student Tuuli (newcomer on the international scene Kataja) she decides to track down and befriend her rival, using a false identity.

Saara joins a self-defence course taught by Tuuli and moves out of her marital home. The women develop a friendship and soon share the role of Leo’s victims, while he eventually must pay for his behaviour.

Mäenpää, who has appeared in several Aki Kaurismäki movies, plays with remarkable conviction and craft the cheated wife, both vulnerable and volcanic, and like her Kataja displays a full palette of emotions and a strong physical presence.

Kotwica has made an assured second film, using a wide range of locations to serve the story-telling to its full. Moreover, Black Ice has hints of Kubrick in its intensity, and Bergman in the dual female face à face.

The film was produced by former Producer on the Move Kai Nordberg and his partner Kaarle Aho for Making Movies (Finland), in co-production with Schmidtz Katze Filmkollektiv (Germany).

Bavaria Film International handles world sales.