Lapland Odyssey

A year ago Janne's girlfriend Inari gave him the money for a digital satellite box. The money went, the box never arrived. She issues a final notice: if the box is not in the house tonight, they are finished. Janne collects two friends and sets off. The trouble is that it is night, it is minus twenty outside, the nearest shop is shut, and all of Lapland lies in front of them. The film does not build an adventure, it accumulates disaster: every stop is worse than the last and the three men keep getting further away. Finnish humour here is built entirely on deadpan; nobody makes jokes, the situations are funny. Dome Karukoski directed. Jussi Vatanen plays Janne and Pamela Tola plays Inari. Scale is part of the joke: the distance covered for one box and the people met along the way turn the emptiness of Lapland into material. Who it is for: anyone who likes Nordic black comedy and road movies confined to one night. Who it is not for: anyone wanting subtlety. Some jokes are coarse, the women get little room in the script, and the last section resolves too easily into sentiment.