Jukka Kärkkäinen: The Beauty of Errors
How do I start a review of this outstanding documentary? With one of the characters? Why not Yuri? Maybe not a character but…
… a dog who comes back again and again in the editing. Yuri is outside the house, wanting to come in, making scratches on the window – “Let me in!”. Yuri is inside eating at the table together with Tero, who portions This is for me and the next bite is for you. Yuri is “upgraded” to sit next to Tero in the car, when Henri is not there. Yuri is running, barking outside inside the fence around the house. And the barking is sometimes like he is crying…
In dramaturgical sense Yuri serves as breaking the narrative: In the many episodes with Tero and Henri, with Henri and his girlfriend, with the grandparents, with Tero in the car, proudly looking out the front window. Yuri sets often the tone, the melancholy of the film, accompanied by the wonderful many Finnish folk and pop songs, that the director has chosen. Very creative!
I have known Tero through Jukka Kärkkäinen’s work since 2009, where he was in the director’s “Living Room of a Nation”. The director started filming him 2003 meaning that they have known each other for more than 20 years. You sense that cearly, the intimacy of the characters in the film is amazing, there is a constant atmosphere or call it a tone of Love towards the characters. Tero is of course the protagonist, a man or call him a big boy. who drinks too much, a man who is easily moved to tears and constantly says, how much Henri means to him. Without you I would have hanged myself, he says! For those who have or have had alcoholics in their family, like me, you can easily identify with the emotional painful situation that unfolds towards the end of the film, where a dialogue between father and son is recorded, while the camera stays outside the house. Oh, it is so authentic!
The two in the car, Tero and Henri, great scenes and dialogues, the two on holidays in Rome, hilarious scenes, as said it is a film with Love and it is a film where you get to love all three generations. One highlight is, when Henri tries to get his driver’s license; he fails the first time, but succeeds at the end and they are all happy and proud. It means everything for the grandfather, who celebrates emptying a bottle of vodka, whereas the grandmother, Pirjo, hugs him, whereas when he is out driving with the girlfriend, she is afraid he drops down into a ditch…
The grandparents are developed as characters in a beautiful manner. Grandfather is going to have a new hip and maybe he has other illnesses. Tero calls the hospital and gets complicated information about where he is now, actually he does not understand medical terms, who does?, being taken from one section to another. I can move my foot, grandfather says when wife and son Tero (constantly in tears!) pay a visit – I, writing this, remember from my hip replacement that this is what the nurses check as the first thing, when you have woken up from the operation.
Put your hand on mine, grandmother says to grandfather, when they sit in their chairs. Another caring, humorous situation is, when grandfather comes home with some flowers to her for celebration, she reacts in a happy manner: Are we gonna have some hanky-panky tonight? Wonderful moments as the film is full of.
Life goes on: Tero sits alone in his armchair with his cellphone talking to Henri – Could there come more from you two, (Henri and the girlfriend) than puppies! Tero wants to be a grandfather. I think Yuri has the same idea, someone to play with or run after. I see it in the dog’s face sitting in the car on the front seat next to Tero. Life goes on.
Thank you for the film Jukka, you carry a lot of love inside you, and you know how to make films!
Finland, Norway, 2026, 94 mins.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️❤️ ❤️
