Aging and approaching midlife are core Mänttäri themes. This time Kari Heiskanen has the honour of personifying a variation on the theme as a petty bourgeoisie medicating his hurtful divorce with a glass of beer, when he hears earth-shaking news about his ex. The real attraction of this talkative TV film however is Erkki Saarela: Mänttäri has written for him seven or eight fourth-wall-breaking characters, out of whom the master of monologue conjured wonderfully multidimensional beings. You have to be crazy not to want to see this.
Perhaps the convention-shattering narration of Annabel Lee reflects the idea, running through all of Mänttäri’s films, of the midlife years as the most confused period of a human being’s life – while also being the occasion for the first serious reckoning. Reckoning being also the subject of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem, which closes this play in style. (Anton Asikainen)
Language: Finnish, no subtitles
In the presence of: Erkki Saarela, Anssi Mänttäri