Yesterday I found what I thought was a little gem of a short film. A curtailed version of it showed up on YouTube and I was very impressed by it. It’s a Finnish 12 minute film with a thoughtful, affecting and difficult theme. It contains some nudity which is completely in context and “non-gratuitous” (though I wonder what gratuitous nudity is meant to be, as opposed to say gratuitous clothing?). The film came out in 2004, directed by Matti Harju with a wonderful performance from Asko Sahlman. All I’ll say is that themes of estranged fatherhood and gayness come up. It’s a brave little film.
What was so strange was that the only full version of it that I could find online was on a porn site, even though it is not in any sense pornography. For that reason I have not given a link to the online film, as the page it’s on is plastered with professional porn images and graphics. Now what does that say about where the subject of the film gets filed in our cultural mind set?
6th October 2011: here is the film on Vimeo
