Frozen Land

A literature teacher is dismissed and turns his anger on his son. The son, Niko, prints a counterfeit five-hundred-euro note and tries to buy a stereo with it. The note passes from hand to hand: a shopkeeper, a worker, a policeman, a woman. At every stop somebody is cheated and passes their anger to somebody else. The chain runs across Helsinki and produces steadily heavier consequences. Aku Louhimies's film adapts Tolstoy's story The Forged Coupon, the same text that was the source for Robert Bresson's L'Argent. The narrative does not deliver its moral directly, but the structure already makes it: a small wrong spreads and nobody stops it. Jasper Pääkkönen, Mikko Leppilampi and Pamela Tola are in the cast. The film won a great many prizes at the 2006 Jussi Awards, including best film, and was the most-watched domestic production of the year in Finland. Who it's for: Viewers who like Nordic drama, chain-narrative structures, and social realism. Who it's not for: The subject is heavy throughout and there is no hope. The scenes of violence and suicide are also direct.