REVIEW Kratt

Kratt!

Dark, Lovable and Extremely Funny

This is my second encounter with kratt, the titular creature of Rasmus Merivoo’s latest film, and boy, it’s damn good on its own terms.

It is radically different from Rainer Sarnet’s dark mysticism in November (2017) for the obvious reason that the two films can’t be compared at all, with their only common denominator being a kratt (and how it’s brought to life), and pretty much everything else put in a dissimilar narrative context.

With Kratt, we have a wicked

Kratt is a dark fantasy comedy, suitable for adults, but also kids over 12. kids movie with f-words, ‘penis helicopters’ and teenage unpolished give-me-a-break attitude that evokes memories of some classics from the 1990s. Think of Richard Donner’s The Goonies, shave off the Hollywood splashy antics and its lavish production, and embrace the Estonian bonkers mythology coming to life in Merivoo’s dark fantasy comedy under the impecable craftmanship of the art department and special effects by Anton Markovskiy. The film is queer as a three dollar bill, and packed with the humor so dry that it could turn the sand of Gobi desert into crisp. Its audience will probably be a

Kratt

By Marina Richter First published in Sirp

mixture of progresssively raised kids who don’t faint at the mention of prophanities and adults who got bored of watching the same old über-polished staff in the cinema with their offspring. This is a family watch that won’t bore anyone to death. No singing princesses, no shooting (although we could turn petty here and say – hey, I saw guns!), no love story of sorts, just a possessed relative and a bit of bloodbath you don’t see really happening although it is happening. It will tease your socks off as a youngster and ridicule you as an adult, taking a portion of your self-importance away.

Merivoo obviously had a blast, after all he made an excellent summer family project. I can almost hear him going: “Hey kids, any plans for the months to come? No? How about acting in daddy’s movie in which I let you eat as many pancakes as you can while commanding a devil’s helper around?” Is there a kid out there saying no to that? I mean, a huge chunk of devilry most of us commited as kids during summer holidays was performed according to a low budget scenario, to a much lesser entertainment result.

Frankly, pretty much aware of the price it involves, it would come handy to have a creature ready to meet one’s every demand. Sod the chores, deadlines, cleaning, washing, changing the nappies, doing the shopping, or cooking. The unholy could even take over a daily task of calling your mother, answering some bullshit questionaries by phonecall centers, or for instance, replying to all those mails by people who want something from you ASAP, but for free, of course, because it is simply ‘your honor’ to take on just another pile of work that nobody will even thank you for. Tracking down the spammers and smiting them would be another fun task I can think of. All you would need is a manual with the pentagram on it, a bit of talent for crafts, and the cooler-than-life teenage attitude that there is nothing beyond repair. Which is exactly what Mia (Nora Merivoo) and Kevin (Harri Merivoo), the main protagonists of Kratt have in overflow.

UNDERTONES AND CONTRASTS There is a thick layer of intentions in Merivoo’s film, and the curious thing is that they don’t stand in the way of each other. From the beginning on, the viewer is met with the irresistible clash of moods and undertones. As the opening credits roll in, we land in a dramatic scene set up in 1895 to the tunes of piano solo of the type that was played live in the times of silent cinema. Not black and white and not silent at all, it’s a fitting and irresistibly slapsticky instigation of the story that continues 120 years later, introducing Little Count (Alo Kurvits) in all his underwordly glory.

MUSIC AND SATIRE Music (the composer of the film is Tauno Aints) is by the way the secret star of the movie. The film even casts the choir of Estonian Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications as activists

ABOVE: The choir of Estonian Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications as activists who are trying to save the ancestral forest. BELOW: Jan Uuspõld as the local pastor, trying to help the kids with his drone.

who are trying to save the ancestral forest from being harvested in a funny subplot that, just like the main narrative, shoots up tiny arrows in direction first world problems. The activists are called “green terrorists” and “snowflakes with no respect for authority” by the village’s governor (Ivo Uukkivi), and the joke is literally on everyone, also on stubborn denialists of the impact the progressive cutting of trees brings. No position is sacred, and no one is spared of being laughed at. All the way there is a sense of what is right or wrong, but charmingly unbothered about delivering didactic messages. Take what you want from it, preferably a better taste for the offbeat music, and a good laugh.

DOWN IN THE FARM The story is set up in the Estonian countryside, in a village that battles its own inner battles between the corrupted/ greedy politicans and local populace which is also divided by their own interests. The fists are clenched, the ghost of the fight out. And the paradisic setting hides a secret or two, among other things a certain book (the Count’s missing journal-the dude who was dodoed at the beginning of the film) guarding the ancient knowledge about how to build a kratt that no one is really aware of before the arrival of syblings Mia and Kevin. Up to then, Kratt was just a legend passed on verbally from generation to generation, kept in the families as a good-night (or a nightmare) story.

The townies don’t have it easy at the beginning, because this isn’t the type of holiday they had in mind. They were, so to speak, tricked to stay with their grandmother on the countryside which doesn’t offer them any kind of modern entertainment including the internet. They have to adapt to grandma Helju’s (Mari Lill) simple life dedicated to chicken, vegetables she grows in the garden, and all other jobs that need to be done around the house.

Long before anything really happens, the cinematographer Jako Krull sets for the nocturnal blue hues to creep your heart out. The premonition of something uncunny settling in is present, and it takes time before it developes full power, becoming a concrete thing happening. It’s a high-class technical intervention, with Krull’s fine feeling for the moment.

Betrayed by their parents (played by Mari-Liis Lill and Marek Tammets) who are actually on their way to a shanty-shanty resort where they are supposed to boost the energy and celebrate a new start (father has finally quit his demanding job), the kids are bored out of their minds and freaked out by things they are supposed to do to help their grandmother. Why work, when you can purchase things in an actual store, they ask. My kid – born and raised on the streets of Vienna would react the same way. Chicken shit stinks, man.

The kids and their creation - a Kratt that is finished and ready to work.

The role of the grandmother (pictures 1 and 3) brought Mari Lill the award for the Best Actress in a leading role at the Estonian 2021 Film and Television Awards. SECRET BOOK I had to think of Milo Ventimglia playing a teen called Jess in Gilmore Girls, who the moment he lands in the incredibly boring small town Star Hollows (Connecticut) to

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live with his uncle, looks around and has Elvis Costello’s song “This is Hell” in his ears. Hell, it is.

You’ve got to love this unfeigned understanding of the way town kids think, unless they were raised in a kumbaya fake hippy environment of a fancy gentrified city district where they would be scorned for stepping on a daffodil and god forbid, eat a full lactose- or gluten pumped meal, which also becomes a subject of the film of sorts. Mia is a vegetarian, she shouts in her grandma’s face, so she storms out of the kitchen to go searching for the avocado tree in the garden, because – such things just do grow in the country, don’t they?

To “Goonify” the film, Merivoo needed the enforcement of sorts to build up a gang of adventure-seeking children, and there was a brilliant choice made for the cast of twins Juuli (Elise Tekko) and August (Roland Treima), named by the simple fact there were born in different months – separated by tens of minutes between July 31st and August 1st. They are nerdy cats as kids of the main green activist Lembit (Paul Purga), a guy who wears glasses without glasses out of habit long after his sight was corrected by an eye surgery.

All of the youngsters have one thing in common – their parents deny them using the modern technology while at the same time being addicted to it themselves. What is else then to do than study a secret book, found accidentaly in the village’s library, even if it was written in German? There is, after all, a tree-hugger ready to lend her linguistic knowledge to help get the instructions right.

IT’S ALIVE! The mastermind of the project Kratt is Mia, the wizzard of the game which almost goes completely out of control. A bit of stolen blood from the governor, and the determination that everything is easy-peasy, get all other children on board. Unlike most of us dinosaurs, she understands the most important tricks of the trade learned from the internet. Buying a service comes with the description, so – there is no stress about it, even when the shit hits the fan.

The grandma becomes a kratt through an unfortunate chain of events, and the game goes well for a bit until it doesn’t anymore. All the while, it will amuse you to no end. She’ll mince a couple of people in the process and walk around in frenzy with a piece of metal stuck to heard head, or pund the bread though stained with blood, but she’ll stay the epithome of family’s unity and unlimited love for the family.

And in between, there is another problem the village is turned to: saving the forest.

There is a clear influence by Steven Spielberg in encounters between humans and machines, given in the way a simple excavator is introduced at night with dramatic music and blinking lights it turnes into something unearthly and slightly threatening, but never to the point of awakening the real dread.

Unlike the undead itself. Don’t try to build a kratt, kiddies, although you might recognize their drive should you come from the wrong side of the social system. “Give me work!” sounds almost like cultural workers asking for new projects, and that outcry does come together with a slightly zombified look of someone who’s been feeding for a while on pasta and catchup only.

Now, kratts and real life have very little together unless we look into it from its metaphorical side and pinpoint human insatiable need of material goods as a universal inheritance of fables’ wisdom. And, because a demon’s favourite joke is satyrical, he sends someone like Little Duke to deal with earthly trifles and communicate with humans for the benefit of a better contractual deal.

There are so many little things you will love about Kratt, including the new-age money-milking resorts advertized practically everywhere, which is where Mia and Kevin’s parents land. You will laugh your heart out observing the ‘purifying methods’ as modern as a spewing bucket can be. Think of The Addams Family children ending up in the summer camp with “Jesus loves you, kumbaya” singing lot, and you’ll recognize the other kind of hell immediately.

Also, meeting a pastor (Jan Uuspöld) who was coiffed by the neighbour of the Tiger King’s hairdresser, and who spies upon his flock with a drone, will make your heart go boom. He does, at the end of the day, deliver one of the most uproarious excorcism scenes seen in the contemporary genre movies. EF

Ink Big!

The critics have done their job

Jan Uuspõld (the pastor, picture 2) and Ivo Uukkivi (the village’s governor, picture 4) work both as actors at the prestigious Estonian Drama Theatre. Kratt gave them a perfect chance to prove their comedic talent.

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