Festivals Reviews SIFF

SIFF 2021: Riders of Justice, Ladies of Steel, The Spy

Riders of Justice (Denmark | 2020 | 116 minutes | Anders Thomas Jensen)

Calling the latest by Anders Thomas Jensen (prolific screenwriter of Susanne Bier films, as well as directing his own absurdist tales) a “screwball comedy” feels like an oversell, although it’s liberally sprinkled with dry, dark humor a la Aki Kaurismäki. All while using an outsized gangland revenge plot starring a tough, serious Mads Mikkelsen to explore themes of the interconnectedness of life, coincidence vs predictable causation, and the benefits of accepting professional mental-health help.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Ladies of Steel (2020 | Finland | 91 minutes | Pamela Tola)

Now THIS is a Scandanavian screwball comedy with a mordant undercurrent. Inkeri (Leena Uotila) has accidentally killed her husband with a frying pan, and promptly rounds up her two sisters for a last-ditch road trip across Finland before turning herself in for her presumable life sentence. Of course they run into some surprises along the way, and find a lot of time for philosophizing, introspection, and taking ruthless stock of the ways they’ve chosen to live their lives, in contrast to their youthful hopes. The film is plenty funny, only slightly dark, quite gentle, and never loses track of how much it cares about its characters and how much they care about each other.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

The Spy (2019 | Norway | 110 minutes | Jens Jonsson)

This WWII espionage thriller (not at all a comedy) moves between Norway and Sweden alongside its lead character, Sonja Wigert (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal), a real-life figure who was famous as an actress, although her role as a double agent infiltrating the Third Reich was a much lesser-known part of her biography until after her death. The film is full of enough twists and turns to satisfy any spy movie buff, as sympathies shift, the bad guys are humanized and the good guys are complicated, and threats of blackmail and familial peril rain down upon our heroine from all sides. Jens Jonsson’s richly vibrant production and costume design and cinematography recall the elegant and evocative recent work of Christian Petzold. Yes, it is another World War II movie with an impossibly generic title that really doesn’t take even half a step outside of its genre, but it’s competent and achieves what it sets out to do, in an aesthetically pleasing manner, while sharing a true story of an interesting woman caught up in the overwhelmingly difficult crosswinds of world history.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Riders of Justice photo credit: Rolf Konow. That film is currently “sold out” and access is limited to only ticket holders and All Access passholders.

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