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★★★★☆
5 January 2018
A movie review of EUTHANIZER. |
“What song would you like to die to?” Veijo Haukka (Matti Onnismaa)
EUTHANIZER packs in commentary on animal cruelty, white supremacy and domestic abuse into its lean 85-minute runtime. And we do not feel short-changed. (One looks forward to writer-director Teemu Nikki’s next project.) Violence swirls around the small town. To ease the mind, maybe the audience will distance themselves, saying it is specific to a MAD MAX-like European community. Such a sentiment is too easy. The bursts of brutality, while heightened, could happen anywhere. Police are not omnipresent in real life, and they are absent in the film. Lawlessness and vigilantism fill the vacuum.
EUTHANIZER packs in commentary on animal cruelty, white supremacy and domestic abuse into its lean 85-minute runtime. And we do not feel short-changed. (One looks forward to writer-director Teemu Nikki’s next project.) Violence swirls around the small town. To ease the mind, maybe the audience will distance themselves, saying it is specific to a MAD MAX-like European community. Such a sentiment is too easy. The bursts of brutality, while heightened, could happen anywhere. Police are not omnipresent in real life, and they are absent in the film. Lawlessness and vigilantism fill the vacuum.
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Veijo has a sideline in black market animal euthanizing. Veijo cares about the mammals he kills. This may seem incongruous, but he is putting creatures out of their misery. “There’s always a certain beauty to the end of pain,” Veijo observes. He is quite the articulate philosopher, only breaking his habitual taciturnity to deliver simmering monologues on mistreating pets. Veijo is the town’s open secret. People come to him because he is cheaper than the local vet. Veijo’s garage sinisterly has empty pet cages piled against an outside wall. He has a code of honour: Killing solely to end suffering. This reason expands over the narrative, when crossing paths with imbecilic white supremacists. The comeuppance dished out on these neo-Nazis by Veijo is a calculated crowd-pleaser.
What kind of person euthanizes mammals? Not till a romance burgeons with a nurse, Lotta (Hannamaija Nikander), do we come to understand the unusual, redemptive journey he has been on. Karma runs through his principles. Those who come into his sphere, acting far from their best towards the animal kingdom, feel his wrath. From locking an indifferent dog owner in a tiny cage to beating up a fisherman, it is only the start of the ferocity.
Surprisingly the tone mixes fury with the darkly funny. EUTHANIZER reminds of IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE (2014). Characters are bizarre. Lotta enjoys being strangled during lovemaking. Veijo’s friend is known as “Vatanen of the thousand v*ginas” (Jouko Puolanto), because of his legendary seduction skills.
Behind a stony exterior, the depth of Veijo’s anger is exemplified when visiting his father, Martti (Heikki Nousiainen), in hospital. Martti can barely move, and it might seem Veijo is there to console. The surface of EUTHANIZER is refreshingly far from what is really unfolding. Veijo is there to watch Martti suffer for the cruelty inflicted on his family.
The vengeance genre remains popular, arguably tapping into audience frustrations. Though, like the best of these, EUTHANIZER shows there is a price to be paid for taking the law into your own hands.
A well made revenge movie from Finland. Funny and affecting.
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