Bad Hair Friday (“Vasaku jala reede”) , the action comedy by young directors Arun Tamm and Andres Kõpper, is bringing audiences from all walks of life to the cinemas of Tallinn. But why? And should you be one of them?
Review by Greta Varts
A Tarantino-esque Tallinn-made film for young audiences
One fine day two young media students were given a fair bit of money after a foreign investor had seen their Tarantino-esque student short and commissioned an action-packed film for young audiences. This is how the story of Bad Hair Friday began. It took a few years, a summer of shooting and a lot of young crew members from the new generation of Estonian film. Now the audiences are flocking to the cinema to see the result like they have not done for years in the history of Estonian cinema. The secret recipe? Easy enough as a guide on paper: cast locally known actors and celebrities, portray contemporary stereotypes, set it in a culturally relevant context of today and add a sense of humor inspired by the youth of the day. Bad Hair Friday is a fast-paced film about different people from various social backgrounds who on one particular summer Friday in Tallinn (the capital of Estonia) become linked both by chance and impulses given by their background stories.
Driven into crazy scenarios by the dangers both in the night and by more abstract notions of the ’darkness’ of humankind, we see thugs, club rats, dangerous mobsters, hookers, rich kids and the more boring ’normal’ kids all having to come to terms with the seemingly random domino effect of life. Varied with some more serious aspects of universal human life, the film generally draws from the comedy genre and tries to engage the viewers by its „drugs, sex and rock’n’roll“. As was said above – easy enough on paper. True, the film, running in the cinemas as this piece is being written, has already drawn viewers in great numbers due to its commercial appeal and will probably become one of the most viewed films since the restoration of independence (1991). However, it is important to note that the value of the film lies more within the current state of Estonian cinema culture than the quality of the film as such, as this film would be utterly irrelevant and poorly received if released in contexts of larger film industries compared to that of Estonia.
An efficient but imperfect recipe
Commenting on the ingredients of the recipe, all adds up to failures in contrast to the apparent monetary success. Firstly, the plot of the film is circumstantial and artificially random, meaning forcedly drawn together as one cohesive narrative. There are too many characters and narrative lines, meaning that they are all subject to a superficial treatment, reaching no satisfactory end result. Secondly, the characters are stereotypical to the extremes and do not change or develop much during the course of the film. Thirdly, the situations are improbable and follow the clichés of the Hollywood film contexts to the letter. The two boys arriving at Tallinn bus station from a presumably more modest town of Estonia, slightly loser flavoured and awkward, are greeted by their friend who seems to be more informed about living it up in the city, promising his friends a good time. Then there are the wannabe-gangster crack addicts exploiting two young girls as prostitutes to provide their income, the prostitutes of course having their own hopes and dreams. There are some more serious underworld characters also involved in the plot, people with money and connections, with the oldest main solution to conflict – torture and murder. We see the rich kids mocking ugly women and snorting cocaine in the club’s VIP section, having sex with at least two females a day. Again, on paper this all looks well and suited to the extremes of the society of the day as caricatures. However, this would perhaps work if the film would be a comedy through and through. By introducing the more serious themes of being and feeling used, peer pressure, cruel violence and suicide, the directing fails to deliver. The key of comedy is lost and yet the story is not credible and does not deliver an educating or thought-provoking message either.
Too many stereotypes
Also, the familiar context of Estonia that the viewers find entertaining is not strong enough in the story itself, but rests heavily on the random jokes and casting decisions. For example, who in Estonia wouldn’t want to see the Estonian Idol winner Ott Lepland who normally sings the most serious of ballads delivering the role of Leemet in the flm; a virgin country boy nerd who in addition to embarrassing himself in most cases, ends up killed after his first time with a girl. In Lepland’s case, the choice to cast a non-actor works. However, the balance is upset heavily by the casting choices as a whole. The professional theatre actors, television actors and non-actors side by side create an uneven performance, all from different departing points and sticking to their style with no compromises for the benefit of the wholesomeness of this film. It could well be that this difference is less noticeable to the foreign viewer who does not recognize the celebrities and has fresh eyes on the professional actors, but this is doubtful. Furthermore, it is doubtful that the foreign viewer would be left with any entertainment value without the knowledge of the inside irony of these casting choices and the jokes these stereotypes offer to the Estonian viewer.
Concerning truthful portrayal of a society, the film fails to depart from stereotypes. The ruling organized crime units of Estonia would highly unlikely be of Estonian origin, the drug addicts would not have the power to hold two healthy girls in their captivity as prostitutes to bargain with, the clubs would not facilitate sex in the public toilets or public cocaine use; and a 20 years old guy would highly unlikely ask someone to marry him, and however naive or nice a guy is, he would probably never kill himself for a girl; a person with a removed ear would not live long without medical attention and so on so forth. Yes, you can argue that in the face of comedy, this is just having a dig at the wrong parts of storytelling, but since this film does seem to also apply to serious issues, these factual discrepancies become irritating and confusing to the viewer. Not to mention that there is a lot of bad directing choices in terms of mise-en-scène, leaving the characters to have conversations in static two shots and yet having guns going off in the background. Again, a question of balancing, this time between the action film and slapstick comedy genres.
Why this film needed to be done anyway
All in all, the value and driving force for the Bad Hair Friday is the praise that it deserves for finally dragging younger audiences to the cinemas to watch an Estonian film. Its importance is removed from the technical execution and creative premises of the film, which are seriously lacking. Instead, the importance is posited in the social dimension and hope that perhaps in time the commercial Estonian cinema will also become a competitive aspect for the local film industry. This can only happen if the endeavors of young film makers with a mission to entertain will also be supported. Without competition within the commercial film, there will be no development in quality and this is why the Bad Hair Friday remains a Friday must-see. On a lighter note, it must be said that there will probably be a curiosity also for the foreign viewer in the strangeness of this film; in its mixture of well known stereotypes and the Estonian context.
Also, one of the best assets of this film is that when treated with the right light expectations and after a long day, this film is capable of gripping the viewer’s attention for the whole film, offering entertainment with all its tricks and chaotic course of action. In that way, the recipe has worked. Releasing approximately 12 films a year, the Estonian film industry has preferred to nurture the art house cinema, creating a situation whereby the general audience will not be interested to see the 10 of them which only the directors themselves understand. Bad Hair Friday gives hope that maybe one day it could be a more level competition between different film endeavors and a more varied choice able to grip more audiences from both the domestic and foreign platform.
“Vasaku jala reede” (Bad Hair Friday), dir. Arun Tamm and Andres Kõpper, 2012
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