In Petri Kotwica's film Black Ice, the viewer is able to watch first hand as Saara, the wife of an architect named Leo, infiltrates into the life of Tuuli, who at the time was in the midst of a long affair with Leo. Personally, I thought that this movie was excellent and kept the viewer between being on the edge of our seat while being very uncomfortable as we watched the plot unfold. Throughout the movie, Saara devises a plan to get back not only at Leo, but at Tuuli as well, as she pretends to be Tuuli's friend and helps her to break up with Leo. There were many interesting twists throughout the movie as well as scenarios that we assumed would have resulted in a different outcome, which made the movie a hit in my mind.
Black Ice is a movie about a middle aged couple (Saara and Leo) who live in Finland and our celebrating her birthday at their house. The movie opens with both individuals being fully nude and engaging in sexual intercourse. While this is happening, we are transitioned to another scene where Tuuli is biking, of which she ends up at Leo's house to spy on him. This is symbolic because we are introduced to the love triangle and this is one of the ways Tuuni discovers that Saara is Leo's wife. The scene then jumps back to the birthday party where Saara finds condoms in Leo's guitar case and thus the whole story begins to unfold.
Saara then begins a search for Tuuli and eventually follows her to a martial arts class, where she enters and begins to take sessions. She then hides Tuuli's bike and offers her a ride home, which one could say is the start to their long and controversial friendship.
As the movie rolls on, we see that Saara and Tuuli are building a strong friendship and even mess with Leo a little bit a parties when they are in costumes. The movie takes its biggest turning point when Saara finds out that Tuuli is pregnant, and she knows that if she wants to keep Leo, that she would have to do something about the baby. We are then a first hand witness to Saara drugging Tuuli and what appears to be a way of checking whether or not she is truly pregnant as Saara lubes up her hand and inserts it into her vagina. Tuuli wakes up and the scene then turns into an awkward lesbian kissing and groping session. Upon entering the bathroom, Tuuli discovers many aspects of the house are similar to those she had seen in the drawings of Leo and everything begins to fall into place. Tuuli ends up driving away without seeing Leo and he begins to chase her in his car after accidentally sipping on a drugged drink she left behind. He then drives off the road and ends up walking a distance and freezing to death.
In the end of the movie, Saara is called to perform a surgery on Tuuli (randomly), where she could have easily killed her or the baby or even both, but ends up saving both of their lives. This was the most uncomfortable scene for me due to the fact that after seeing the build up of events up to this point, I figured that Saara would have killed her and taken advantage of the situation. Obviously I predicted wrongly.
As far as how the movie was filmed, I feel that the use of camera angles and close up shots made the viewer feel like we were actually apart of each scene. This is specifically the case when Leo and Saara are having sex in their bed. The distance the scene was being shot from made me feel like I was sitting in their living room watching the whole thing. Another example of the excellent film techniques used in the film was the use the close up shots and extreme close up shots in the sex scenes. It made me feel like I was actually witnessing real sex and could feel the emotions in the air.
A common theme among Nordic films is the idea of secretiveness, which I found to be the most prevalent theme in this film. Between the affair and Saara and Tuuli's friendship, the whole movie was based around the secretiveness of its characters.
Overall, I would rate the film Black Ice an 8 out of 10 Stars. I thought the plot was very interesting and kept the viewer satisfyingly uncomfortable throughout the whole movie. I thought the acting was good, and the cinematic techniques were better than average. I would definitely recommend this movie to those interested in watching an uncomfortable adultery film. The main downside of the movie for me was that I had to read the subtitles and could not put 100% of my concentration on the film itself. Other than that, I thought the movie was great.
Black Ice is a movie about a middle aged couple (Saara and Leo) who live in Finland and our celebrating her birthday at their house. The movie opens with both individuals being fully nude and engaging in sexual intercourse. While this is happening, we are transitioned to another scene where Tuuli is biking, of which she ends up at Leo's house to spy on him. This is symbolic because we are introduced to the love triangle and this is one of the ways Tuuni discovers that Saara is Leo's wife. The scene then jumps back to the birthday party where Saara finds condoms in Leo's guitar case and thus the whole story begins to unfold.
Saara then begins a search for Tuuli and eventually follows her to a martial arts class, where she enters and begins to take sessions. She then hides Tuuli's bike and offers her a ride home, which one could say is the start to their long and controversial friendship.
As the movie rolls on, we see that Saara and Tuuli are building a strong friendship and even mess with Leo a little bit a parties when they are in costumes. The movie takes its biggest turning point when Saara finds out that Tuuli is pregnant, and she knows that if she wants to keep Leo, that she would have to do something about the baby. We are then a first hand witness to Saara drugging Tuuli and what appears to be a way of checking whether or not she is truly pregnant as Saara lubes up her hand and inserts it into her vagina. Tuuli wakes up and the scene then turns into an awkward lesbian kissing and groping session. Upon entering the bathroom, Tuuli discovers many aspects of the house are similar to those she had seen in the drawings of Leo and everything begins to fall into place. Tuuli ends up driving away without seeing Leo and he begins to chase her in his car after accidentally sipping on a drugged drink she left behind. He then drives off the road and ends up walking a distance and freezing to death.
In the end of the movie, Saara is called to perform a surgery on Tuuli (randomly), where she could have easily killed her or the baby or even both, but ends up saving both of their lives. This was the most uncomfortable scene for me due to the fact that after seeing the build up of events up to this point, I figured that Saara would have killed her and taken advantage of the situation. Obviously I predicted wrongly.
As far as how the movie was filmed, I feel that the use of camera angles and close up shots made the viewer feel like we were actually apart of each scene. This is specifically the case when Leo and Saara are having sex in their bed. The distance the scene was being shot from made me feel like I was sitting in their living room watching the whole thing. Another example of the excellent film techniques used in the film was the use the close up shots and extreme close up shots in the sex scenes. It made me feel like I was actually witnessing real sex and could feel the emotions in the air.
A common theme among Nordic films is the idea of secretiveness, which I found to be the most prevalent theme in this film. Between the affair and Saara and Tuuli's friendship, the whole movie was based around the secretiveness of its characters.
Overall, I would rate the film Black Ice an 8 out of 10 Stars. I thought the plot was very interesting and kept the viewer satisfyingly uncomfortable throughout the whole movie. I thought the acting was good, and the cinematic techniques were better than average. I would definitely recommend this movie to those interested in watching an uncomfortable adultery film. The main downside of the movie for me was that I had to read the subtitles and could not put 100% of my concentration on the film itself. Other than that, I thought the movie was great.