Concrete Night [Betoniyö] *** (2013, Johannes Brotherus, Jari Virman, Anneli Karppinen, Juhan Ulfsak) – Classic Movie Review 12,852

A 14-year-old boy living in a Helsinki concrete jungle goes off the rails taking life lessons from his older brother on his last day of freedom before starting a prison sentence. 

Finnish director Pirjo Honkasalo’s 2013 drama film Concrete Night [Betoniyö] is based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Pirkko Saisio and tells the story of a bewildered, befuddled 14-year-old boy named Simo (Johannes Brotherus) who lacks a sense of self or the ability to protect himself from his surroundings.

Simo and his big brother Ilkka (Jari Virman) live in a concrete jungle in Helsinki with their useless single mother (Anneli Karppinen), who persuades Simo to share his brother’s last night of freedom before starting a prison sentence.

I’m very conflicted, yes the black and white cinematography is spectacular, incredibly exciting and imaginative. Cinematographer Peter Flinckenberg rightly received the American Society of Cinematographers Spotlight Award for his work on the film. Concrete Night [Betoniyö] is a wonderfully immersive experience if you simply succumb to the images, in which director Pirjo Honkasalo brilliantly mixes fiction and documentary film. But I hated what ‘story’ there is: it culminates in Simo’s casual encounter with a photographer who wants to takes pictures of him, which launches Simo into a rage of murderous violence, in a homophobic attack, in which he finds his true identity. Wow, that’s dark. But then the whole film is dark and deranged. It’s going to be nobody’s best friend. But then Simo is going to be nobody’s best friend either.

The frenzied attack is an incredibly nasty prolonged sadistic killing. We lose sympathy for Simo. Simo was lost and now has completely lost it. As the mother was so useless and the father is non-existent, Simo has turned to his big brother Ilkka for love and to be a role model. Unfortunately, taking life lessons from the homophobic criminal who’s about to go to jail isn’t exactly a good idea, and Simo goes off the rails.

Honkasalo says that in black and white she can make the environment and story simpler and clearer. And in Concrete Night she does make the environment abundantly clear, along with its effect on the characters. But she has less success with the story, and does not make that clear at all, or what she is trying to say. The dazzlingly spartan images are reflected in an easy-to-get-lost minimalist screenplay, with relatively little dialogue to help, and most of what dialogue there is is obscure and, OK, yes poetic, frustratingly poetic.

Indeed, Honkasalo’s films are known for their lack of dialogue. She says: ‘Pictures can reach the unspoken part of a human. The part indescribable with language.’ She believes ‘this silence makes the filming itself almost sacred’.

I’m thinking Concrete Night would divide audiences. It invites a strong reaction one way or another. A Marmite movie then, love it or loathe it. I’d call it a unique experience, which is great and lucky. I wouldn’t want to see it again. Or would I?

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,852

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