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By Culture
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Friday, 15 January 2010 |
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‘Letters to Father Jacob’ is a close to a work of art as a short movie is likely to get.
We don’t know why Leila (Katriina Hazard) is in prison. But she is a muscular, angry woman so right from the start we begin to guess. From the very first scene, ‘Letters to Father Jacob’ is a curious film. For some reason, Leila is pardoned for whatever crime she’s committed and, with no family to look after her, the only option she has is equally odd. As she doesn’t ‘get on with’ her sister, a blind, elderly priest – Father Jacob (Heikki Nousiainen) – has offered to employ her to read the many prayer request letters which he receives.
The contrast between the two characters could hardly be more dramatic. Leila is bitter, selfish and angry. She steals from the deeply trusting pastor, throws some of his letters down the well so there are fewer to wade through and snaps at him, ‘I don’t do housework!’ and ‘Don’t fucking pray for me!’ Father Jacob is saintly – devoting his life to his parishioners and – now that he’s retired – responding to their requests for prayer and assistance. ‘Some of them write just once, some of them write many times,’ he tells his bemused assistant. He can sometimes tell just by the style of Finnish who is writing to him.
There is something beautifully simple about ‘Letters to Father Jacob’. It is a simplicity that really works and focuses on the most important themes, the most important scenes and the most significant dialogues. The central theme is isolation and it is movingly examined. All three of the characters are isolated. Father Jacob appears to have no family and, as the movie progresses, people stop writing – something which induces a kind of mental break-down. Leila has no family and when, in the wake of a row, she decides to leave Father Jacob there’s the tragic-comic moment when the taxi-driver asks her, ‘Where do you want to go to?’ The only other character is the Postman (Jukka Keinonen) who everyday calls out ‘Letters for Father Jacob’ so that the blind man knows they’re coming. Set in the 1960s, all are cut off, in the wilds of southern Finland.
The other central theme is forgiveness. Father Jacob spends much of his day praying for people’s sins to be forgiven as a kind of intercessor between his parishioners and God. He also – many times – presumably forgives the contemptuous way in which Leila treats him. But the film culminates in our uncovering an almost incredible act of forgiveness and love which Father Jacob has been involved in. We discover – in a moment – how Leila has ended-up with Father Jacob, why Father Jacob was interested in her in the first place and exactly why she was sent to prison. It truly is catharsis and, as such, I don’t want to spoil it by giving anything away.
Unsurprisingly, we also see a gradual change – a ‘conversion’ perhaps? – in Leila. At first she mocks the naïve priest. But eventually, she warms to him. She beats-up the postman who she finds in Jacob’s house in the night and assumes he’s trying to steal money. When the post stops coming, she demands that the post should come nevertheless and connives with the postman to achieve this. He will shout out ‘Letters to Father Jacob’ and give her a magazine. She will then tear it – so Jacob thinks an envelope is being opened – and make-up a letter from somebody. It is in perpetrating this white lie that Leila ends up reading him a letter from deep inside herself. The acting is also highly commendable which it has to be to carry film in which there is relatively little plot or interesting effects. Hazard, in particular, has a very difficult to job to make us empathise with such a harsh, superficially unpleasant woman but she manages to very persuasively.
One possible criticism is that the film is very short, only just stretching beyond an hour. But this is another example of its simplicity. The film is extremely tight – there is nothing that is unnecessary. Every scene, every word of dialogue, even every prop seems to justify itself. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that is quite as well-honed as this. Anything extraneous has, presumably, been cut to get down to the absolute bare minimum and this is a crucial reason why the movie is so effective. It is a very uncomplicated plot and – on the surface – not even a particularly interesting idea. I assumed it would be a pretentious, arty film and was bracing myself for that . . . but how wrong I was. ‘Letters to Father Jacob’ really does deserve an Oscar. It is a triumph.
Letters to Father Jacob. (Postia Pappi Jaakobille). 2009. Klaus Häro (Screenlay and Director). Jaana Makkonen (Original Script).
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