THE WOODCUTTER STORY

Finland, 2022, 99 minutes, Colour. 

Is there a place for existentialist absurdism in cinema? In watching this film from Finland, set in a remote sawmill town, amidst the forest snowlcad trees, a range of ordinary characters who live rather mundane lives but are prone to utter deeper questions about the meaning of life and existence, there are reminders of the Coen brothers, especially Fargo. But, the director who comes to mind as we watch, if we have seen the films of the Swedish director, Roy Andersson, we realise that he was quite a pioneer in Existentialist Absurdism. And, with the Finland connection, there are memories of Ari Kaurismaki (and one commentator threw in Bunuel as well as Twin Peaks!).

Which means that an audience for The Woodcutter Story has either to be prepared for the absurdism or accept it as it unfolds before our eyes and ears.

There is an enigma right from the start, a businessman, suit and tie, climbing the snow to a high hut and forcing a woman to sign a contract of sale, presumably the sawmill. There is even more enigma at the end as the hero of the film, the rather uncomplicated Everyman, Pepe, also climbs to the hut and finds, symbolically, at home and life is where the heart is.

In the meantime, we get to know Pepe, simple, kind, a glass-half-full type, dressed in a red ski suit with muffler, surprisingly skimpy hair when he takes it off! He has a big burly friend at the mine, Tuomas, is devoted to his young son, is upset when his mother, disturbed by a wild beast, dies in hospital, and discovers when Tuomas is upset when he learns that his wife is carrying on with the barber, Pepe discovers that the barber is carrying on with all the women in the town!

So far, so deadpan in laconic dialogue, in posed pictures of the townsmen, and the camera focusing so often on facial reactions to characters and events. But, an axe murder, and the shift from deadpan to dead.

So, what follows is a great number of absurdist episodes – strikingly, for example, father and son wandering the snowclad Street outside closed shops but finding a barber’s shop, going in and finding the most up-to-date salon you could imagine, empty, but managed by a young girl who slips the little boy’s hair and, with a knife, approaches the lathered in the, and lose it at that! Except that the little boy becomes infatuated with the girl which leads him into all kinds of trouble.

It is not only Pepe who asks questions about the meaning of life, but a tall bearded man who seems to be obsessed with it, wanting to have a meeting to discuss life only to be told that it is a card night! And then there is a psychic singer who comes to the town, forces Pepe to surface his memories, which the psychic mimics. When crowds gather and the psychic sings, the most benevolent song, we imagine that perhaps there is a religious solution for the meaning of life. But, no – he is exposed as self-absorbed, a discredit to evangelists.

It means that if an audience cannot accept this kind of realism/deadpan surrealism narrative (and most won’t?), then they will be bewildered/annoyed. But, for those who can accept and be drawn into this often bizzare world, absurdism raises the questions and makes us wonder whether there are answers.