QUICK’N DIRTY: LIVE FROM BERLIN
Quiet and introspective Finnish Saga (Seidi Haarla) moves with her chirpy British husband Jon (Rupert Grint) to her old and long-abandoned family house in the Finnish countryside. The couple are exhilarated with joy. They can’t wait to have three kids, a precise number on which both seem to agree. It is only after carrying the bride over the threshold and getting nearly sucked underground – the rotten boards under their feet nearly collapse – that they realise that the future may not be as bright and smooth as they anticipated. Saga insists that they conceive their first baby in the nearby forest. That’s the place her grandmother prohibited her from entering during her child.
Nine months later baby boy Kuura is born. But there’s something unusual about him (or “it”, as Saga prefers the infant). The creature is born with a hairy back and a tiny tail sprout. It mutilates both of Saga’s nipples during breastfeeding, and nearly rips Finnish grandma’s ear off. It develops a taste for raw meet. Unbeknownst to Jon, Saga secretly feeds him cow blood instead of baby formula. To boot, Kuura is sensitive to light, suggesting some vampiresque affinities. Parallel to this, a tree sapling grows inside the now-refurbished mansion. The connection to nature that should liberate them, may instead imprison the young couple and their “child”.
The cultural divide between the blunt and laconic Finnish and the cordial and outspoken British is a central topic. The subtle comments are guaranteed to evoke some laughter. Or smiles. Or maybe grimaces. Finnish curtness is too awkward for Jon to handle: a mere “how are you” is met with bewilderment. Saga’s mother insists that her daughter was just as unusual difficult as her grandchild. Saga’s relationship with her sister is equally fraught. There is little time for rosy interjections. Clumsy frankness prevails. Such honesty is guaranteed to ruffle some feathers in the UK.
Funny and creepy in equal measure, the sophomore feature of this 45-year-old Finnish director is a successful endeavour. It transforms the worst nightmares of a first-time mum into something graphic and boisterous. Kuura howlers and growls like an urban fox. He turns bonding into the most unpleasant and painful of experiences (who would want their baby to dilacerate their breasts?). The baby shower and first meeting with grandparents becomes a freak show, leaving Saga feeling ashamed and insecure. Jon is left to pick up the pieces. He is convinced that social services could lend a helping hand. Saga begs to differ. She perceives the intrusion of an external professional as a threat. Therapy could make the experience even worse.
The end of the movie is wilfully loud and absurd. It is also beautifully multithreaded. Laced with twerking branches. The Finish directors skilfully recycles Scandinavian folklore images, in a way not dissimilar to David Bruckner’s The Ritual (2027). Overall, this is vivid, livid and chilling fun.
Nightborn just premiered in the Official Competition of the 76th Berlinale. This is a welcome addition to an otherwise far more sombre and solemn selection. This is also a good companion piece to last year’s Mother’s Baby (Johanna Moder), which showed in the same competitive strand: also the story of a woman convinced that there’s something wrong with her newborn baby .
